Each appointment with the GP is for 10 minutes. However if you have more than one problem please request a double appointment (20 minutes). This will enable your doctor to give you the appropriate time you need. Appointments at the Nurse Specialist Clinics ie Midwife, Hypertension, Diabetes, Asthma, COPD, Coronary Heart Disease and Anticoagulation are for 15 to 30 minutes. Please arrive in good time for all your appointments and cancel if you are unable to attend. We will try to run to time but the nature of medicine is such that inevitably there will be unpredictable delays at times. We would ask for your patience and understanding when this happens and also would ask you to remember that next time it might be you or a loved one who needs extra time with the doctor or has an emergency.
All the doctors and nurses work to appointments. Demand for appointments has increased over the years; we are still trying to keep up with demand and have made major changes to the appointment system to provide a faster and better service. There are 2 types of appointments.
Your call will be taken by a receptionist who will
need a contact telephone number on which the medical team can ring you back.(A
landline preferably; if using a mobile please double check the number and make
sure it is switched on.) You will be given an approximate time when a member
of the medical team will ring you back.
At the return call your problem
will be discussed and together we will decide the most appropriate way to deal
with it. For example this may be telephone advice, offering a face to face
appointment that day, passing your call on to another professional eg Health
Visitor or arranging a longer routine appointment at a later date.
The On
The Day Team will be run by different doctors every day, there will be no
choice of doctors.
Still available with the doctor of your choice. These will be for non urgent matters and longterm problems that your regular doctor has been managing on an ongoing basis. By dealing with more urgent and simple matters by the "On The Day" system we can free more time, offering longer appointments for complex problems.
Our aim is to provide an On The Day service where patients can easily get an appointment the same day and get high quality medical care.
Yes, if you wish to see your own doctor you can book a routine appointment when they will be able to see you without the pressures of extras and urgent appointments. However there will be no choice with the On The Day team as it will be run by different doctors in turn.
Use your judgement. Can your problem wait for a routine appointment with your own doctor? If you are not sure ask for an On The Day appointment and discuss it with the OTD team.
We will try to give you a rough idea of when we will call. Of course the nature of medicine means we will not be able to stick to this exactly but we will do our best. The more flexible you can be, the easier it will be for us to help you.
As you may be aware, we have made some major changes to our appointments system at Parsons Heath. The purpose of doing this is to improve the service we provide to our patients and help us to manage patient demand more effectively. With the new system we will aim to see everyone who needs to be seen on the day. We cannot however easily cater for walk in patients. We are not providing an open access service such as the local Accident and Emergency Department because we simply do not have the resources. As a walk in patient it is likely that you will have to wait your turn in the same way that patients who have rung earlier in the day to seek advice have been asked to wait and attend at a given time.
If we are to provide prompt appointments with Doctors it is very important that patients also make use of the services provided by the other members of the team. For the following problems it is best if you see the Nurse Practitioner, as she will be able to treat and assess these problems as needed and obviously she can call on the doctors for further advice if needed:
General medical advice, such as fevers, colds, flus, headaches, sore throat, minor injuries, wounds including bites, rashes and stings, impetigo, diarrhoea and vomiting, urinary symptoms in women and children (males over 16 should see the doctor), earache, conjunctivitis and emergency contraception. Women who need cervical smears should also make a nurse appointment.
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