On-the-day booking of GP appointments from
1st December 2015
From Tuesday 1st December, appointments with doctors will be booked on-the-day. Morning appointments will be
released at 8.00am for booking over the phone, online or in person, and afternoon appointments will be released
at 11.30am. There will be more staff answering the phones from 8am to cope with this and a message on the
telephone will alert callers to their position in the queue.
If your doctor wishes to see you in a follow-up appointment you will be given a pre-bookable GP review
appointment.
If you have a problem which is medically urgent and cannot wait, you will be asked questions about your problem by
the Receptionist who, if appropriate, will book you an appointment with the Duty doctor.
You may request a telephone call back from a GP; depending on the nature of your query this may be investigated
and dealt with by a another member of staff. The number of advice calls for GPs will be limited each day.
You will still be able to book ahead for Saturday morning doctor appointments; and most nurse appointments during
the week and on a Saturday as you do now.
Why are we making these changes?
The demand for on-the-day treatment has risen and the number of patients not turning up for pre-booked
appointments remains high, at around 100 appointments a week. This is despite efforts to curb the number of ‘did
not attends’ by a system of issuing warning letters and removing patients who continue to fail to turn up for
appointments rather than cancel them.
GPs are receiving an increasing number of telephone advice call requests which is adding considerably to their daily
workload. Doctors not only see patients in clinical sessions but spend a lot of time out-of-clinic making referrals,
reading and taking action on letters regarding patients from hospital and other healthcare providers, reviewing
patients’ test results and dealing with prescription requests.
Unfortunately the practice is facing a huge financial cut from NHS England, in an environment of general financial
pressure anyway, which means we have to work differently to try to meet patient demand, we cannot simply hire
more doctors and nurses. We will review how the new system works in the New Year and make changes as
necessary. If you wish to discuss any aspect of this please ask to speak to the practice manager, Mrs Michelle Kears.
Thank-you for your understanding and co-operation.