New Appointment System

As a Health care provider we are passionate about the care of our patients. We aim to provide a good standard of care while safeguarding our own health and wellbeing. Over recent years demand for appointments has outweighed our capacity and we have been looking at ways to ensure patients problems are dealt with safely and efficiently.

As you will know we introduced eConsult recently which has proven popular with many of our patients giving them the flexibility to contact us at a time suitable to them and receive a reply within 48 hours. We are still seeing a large number of patients who are demanding an urgent ‘on the day’ appointment which is not always necessary. We appreciate our system hasn’t made it easy to request an advance appointment and therefore are trialling a new system from 23rd October and ask for you help in ensuring it runs smoothly. Our aim is always to offer patients the best person within an appropriate timescale following the "right care, right time, right place, and right team" philosophy.

Below is a guide to our new system, which will be introduced from 23 October:

• Patients will be offered the next available appointment when they phone which will include pre-bookable telephone or face-to-face slots.
• Please remember that eConsult can be accessed Monday to Friday 5am – 7pm (6pm on Fridays) and is accessed through our website. Find out more about econsult or start an econsult now, and a reply will be send to you within 48 hours. This may be advice from a GP, information leaflets, a request for more info such as a photo or to advise you a prebookable appointment has been made or is required. eConsult also acts as a signposting tool and may direct you to a chemist or more appropriate service such as the dentist, optician or NHS inform.
• If your problem is urgent and is required to be dealt with that day you may be directed to A&E, minor injuries or given an urgent slot for a GP to call you back. The admin team will ask you information to allow GPs to prioritise calls. Please remember they are trying to help you and are bound by the same confidentiality as the clinical team. Abusive and rude language will NOT be tolerated. If a GP deems your problem not to be urgent for that day you may be called back by an admin member of the team who will pass on any message from the GP to you. Admin team members do not make any clinical decisions.

Our aim is to ensure patients who require a GP contact receive one timeously, and ask you to think if your problem can be dealt with by another Health Care Professional such as a community pharmacist, optician, dentist or indeed by self care.

Thank you for your support.

Wendi Lees
Practice Manager

Posted: 20 October 2023