Appointments

Reception is open from 8.00 to 6.30 from Monday to Friday.

Routine surgeries run between 8.10 and 11.00 and 2.00pm to 6.00pm on an appointments basis. see times

You can now book your appointment  online , first you need to contact the practice to get a pin number and then simply click on the link and follow the instructions.

To make an appointment  by telephone: 01420 84676

• Please phone the surgery on the day you would like an appointment.
• The receptionist will endeavor to give you an appointment with your usual doctor.
• A proportion of our appointments are available to be booked up to two weeks in advance, the majority are "book on the day".
• Monday is our busiest day and it would be helpful if routine telephone calls and requests could wait until later in the week.
• Enquiries for prescriptions or test results should please be restricted to between 11 and 4pm
• Please telephone and cancel an appointment if you are unable to keep it. In 2005 we had more than 1000 missed appointments.
• Medically urgent cases will always be seen immediately but it may not be with your usual doctor.
• Routine appointments are normally made at 10-minute intervals. If you think your problem is very complicated, or if you have several things that you want to discuss with your doctor, let the receptionist know and she will attempt to book a longer appointment for you.
• If booking an appointment for a specific purpose, such as vaccination, a smear test or medical examination, please let us know (they will need to be either longer or with a specific member of staff.

If your doctor is fully booked, a telephone consultation will be offered with the practice sister. She will then deal with your problem by either advising you appropriately over the telephone or arranging an appointment at the nurse run clinic. If attending the nurse clinic, the nurse will either resolve your problem, or ask a doctor to see you. Please ensure that, if requested, you provide reception with a telephone number on which you can be contacted, so that your call can be replied to swiftly. 

Waiting to see a doctor

Sitting in the waiting room, waiting your turn to see the doctor, is not most people’s idea of fun. It is both stressful and a waste of time, and the waiting room is not a particularly healthy or germ free environment!

Perhaps surprisingly, one of the things the doctors least like and find most stressful is running behind in our appointment times and thus keeping our patients waiting; so not good for you, and not good for us.

Our booked appointments run at 10-minute intervals. On average this works out about right; if we allowed longer we would have to see fewer patients and so patients would encounter greater difficulty in booking routine appointments. If we had shorter times our consultations would be less adequate or be even more likely to overrun.

However 8 or 9 minutes with the doctor may not be sufficient for your needs on every occasion. We would suggest the following simple steps to try to help prevent us from running late.

1. If you have a problem that you think may be long and difficult please ask the receptionist to book you a double appointment; we welcome this.
2. Try to avoid bringing multiple problems to a single consultation. It is much more in your interests to have separate appointments for separate problems.
3. Even though we may run a little late, please try to be here on time for your appointment. One late consultation at the beginning of a 3 hour surgery will possibly make 17 people all have to wait an extra 10 minutes each!

Just occasionally, we are called out on emergencies. This can create havoc to the smooth running of a surgery, but it is clearly unavoidable. We apologize should this affect you but ask for your forbearance under these difficult circumstances

Get telephone advice

You can phone at any time to talk to the emergency nurse (9.00 to 5.00) or doctor, (8.00 to 6.30)
Routine enquires will be passed to our triage nurse. Reception will take your number and the nurse will phone you back. Please leave a number where you will be available to answer.
Enquires to specific doctors usually require a message to be left and the doctor will return your call after surgery.