Telephone Advice
We have very high number of calls during from 8am to 10am and 11am to 1pm, especially on Mondays and Fridays. The following guidance has been provide to help you improve your telephone access to the surgery:
- Please think about exactly what you want before making the call and try to be as concise as possible.
- If you require a planned/routine appointment (i.e., in 3 or more days time), try ringing the surgery after 3pm or book online.
- If you require a routine appointment within 48 hours, try ringing between 1pm and 3pm.
- If you require a same day appointment, you must ring before 1:00pm. If we have no appointments available, you will be offered the chance to speak with the duty doctor, who will arrange an appropriate appointment.
- Cancel your appointment online, making more appointments available (8% to 10% of doctor appointments are wasted each month by patients not attending appointments).
- Remember your appointment time, avoiding the need to make a telephone call to check the time.
- Do not order repeat prescriptions by telephone.
Telephone Consultations
- If you need to simply speak to a doctor or nurse, please request a telephone consultation – it may be more appropriate than a normal appointment.
- If the doctor is not available to speak to you when you call, we have allocated telephone consultations for each doctor, meaning the doctor will call you back within a prearranged time period to speak to you.
- Please give your contact number to the reception staff so we can ensure the doctors can return your call
Telephone Access
Recent patient surveys have shown that we need to improve our telephone access. We acknowledge our patients’ views and have undertaken a number of developments to enhance our telephone service:
- New telephone system and call distribution
- Provided staff awareness training
- Provided online services as an alternative means of access
We will also be taking further actions during the coming months to significantly improve telephone access for our patients.