Please use our new appointments portal
Appointments
Urgent advice: If you need help when we are closed
- Call 999 in a medical or mental health emergency. This is when someone is seriously ill or injured and their life is at risk.
- If you need medical help now, use NHS 111 online or call 111
- NHS 111 online is for people aged 5 and over, Call 111 if you need help for a child under 5.
Appointments System
Routine Appointments
We offer both face to face and telephone routine appointments and pre-bookable appointments can usually be booked up to six weeks in advance.
When contacting us online or in person, you are likely to be asked to provide a short description of your symptoms. This information will be held confidentially and will help to direct you to the most appropriate service and to the most suited member of the healthcare team.
Urgent Appointments
If your problem is urgent and you feel that you need advice on the same day, please advise the receptionist. We have an Urgent Care Team that deals with all urgent problems. You may be seen by a Nurse Practitioner, Physicians Associate or a GP. We are not able to advise you in advance who your appointment will be with and the available appointment may be at any of the 3 branches. It would be helpful if you can tell the receptionist a brief description of why you need an urgent appointment so that we can ensure that you are seen by the most appropriate clinician. Our Nurse Practitioners are qualified in treating a wide range of problems. They are able to prescribe and should they feel that you need to have a further urgent assessment with a GP are able to arrange this.
Telephone Consultations
If you are unable to attend the surgery or the matter can be dealt with over the telephone, we also offer telephone consultations. Whilst telephone appointments will have a time allocated to them, the clinician may call 2 hours before or 2 hours after the allotted appointment time.
We may ask that you send us a photo if your consultation is about skin, please see the link below if we do ask
Taking photos of your skin and sending them securely to your GP
Appointment Information
We allow 10 minutes per consultation for one person only.
We ask that you try to observe the “One appointment, one problem” ethos. We aim to deal with each medical problem to the highest standard and this can be difficult if we are asked to deal with a number of problems in one appointment slot.
Please also note that your appointment is for you only. Please do not ask the doctor to deal with the problems of a child or other relative in the same appointment slot. Please make a separate appointment for your child/relative if they need to be seen as well.
We do consider that GP appointments are a limited resource and we would kindly ask that our service be used with care and consideration. Please do not be offended if the doctor asks you to rebook for your other problems. We are working in your best interests in order to keep you safe.
You are entitled to see a doctor of your choice. We encourage you to see the same doctor for an ongoing problem. However, we may not always be able to offer you a suitable day and time because not all the GPs work full time and some divide their time between different sites. If you are unable to see a doctor of your choice at your usual surgery, we may be able to offer you an appointment at one of our other surgery’s or offer you an appointment with an alternative GP or Nurse Practitioner.
Please ensure you arrive in good time for your appointment. If you are unable to attend, please let us know as soon as possible as someone else may be able to make use of that appointment. If you repeatedly waste appointments the practice may, after a warning, remove you from our patient list.
We realise that it can be frustrating for patients to have to wait beyond their appointment time and we always try our best to run on time. However, as it is often not possible to predict how much time an individual patient may need as sometimes emergencies arise, so there will be times that our surgeries run behind. We apologise when that happens and aim to inform you if the waiting time is likely to be more than 30 minutes.
Late Night and Weekend Appointments
Thursday Evening Extended Access - 18:00pm - 20:30pm
The practice operates an evening surgery every Thursday for pre-booked appointments at Greenwood Health Centre, Burntwood
Saturday Out of Hours Hub - 09:00am – 17:00pm
We are also working in conjunction with other practices in Burntwood and Lichfield to offer weekend appointments at Samuel Johnson Hospital
Please note, the out of hours service enables authorised Doctors and Clinicians to view your full GP medical record from your own GP practice. This includes medications, referrals and other key clinical information to make a better and more informed decision about your treatment. You can find more information on Shared Care Records and our Partner Organisations in our Privacy Policy
Chaperones
All patients are entitled to have a chaperone present for any consultation, examination or procedure where they feel one is required. This may be a family member, friend or a formal chaperone. Your healthcare professional may also require a chaperone to be present for certain consultations in accordance with our chaperone policy. If you wish to have a chaperone present during your consultation, please mention this to the receptionist when booking your appointment or to the doctor at your consultation.
Interpreters
If you are non-English speaking and require an interpreter please tick the appropriate box when completing your registration form.
An interpreter can be organised to either accompany a patient or translate via telephone. You must mention this when booking your appointment so that the necessary arrangements can be made prior to your visit.
Text Reminder Service
We have a texting service which allows you to receive confirmation and reminders about your appointments.
To have this service you will need to register by completing a consent form.
Please remember to update your contact details with us when you change address, telephone numbers and email address.
Page created: 23 November 2020