Appointments

Healthcare at Spa Medical Centre is provided by a team of professionals who work closely together in order to offer you an efficient and personal service. Each of us has particular areas of expertise, which makes it important that we know a little about the help you require when you make your appointment.

We organise our appointments into two types – same day for urgent problems and routine for new problems, follow-up appointments and less pressing issues. We allocate 10 minutes for all appointments, which rarely gives sufficient time to discuss more than one problem. If you think you are likely to need a longer appointment, please advise our Reception Staff at the time of booking so that your consultation time can be adjusted accordingly. Patients may see any doctor, but continuity of care is encouraged. Appointments may be made by phone, by calling in at the Medical Centre or by our online booking service.

Every month a substantial number of patients fail to keep their appointment with the doctor and an equal number fail to turn up to the see the Nurse or attend a clinic. Because of this, we are unable to offer routine appointments as quickly as we would like, and leaves you – the patient, waiting longer to see their GP than they need to.

If you are unable to keep your appointment, please inform us as quickly as possible as this will assist in oversubscribed situations. Please telephone our cancellation line on 01225 898006 to cancel an appointment, or visit the surgery to do so. HELP US TO HELP YOU!

Chaperones

You are entitled to ask or arrange for a chaperone to be present during intimate examinations. This is normally carried out by one of our Nursing staff. Please ask in advance if you wish the practice to provide a chaperone.

Duty Team - Same Day Appointments

Our Duty Doctor and Nurse are happy to see patients with urgent problems that require immediate attention. You will be asked some brief questions about the nature of your problem and, although you are not obliged to tell us, it helps us decide whether you need to see a GP, Nurse or other healthcare professional. The receptionist can help you decide which healthcare professional is most appropriate for your needs, or whether pharmacy or other agencies can offer you the help and support required.

Any information given to staff is treated in the strictest confidence as they are bound by the same rules of confidentiality as the Doctors and Nurses.

A morning and afternoon surgery is available for patients who have problems that have arisen suddenly and consider the need too pressing to wait for a routine appointment. Emergency appointments are allocated in chronological order, and where the Duty Doctor may be called out on an emergency visit, patients may have to wait more than usual to see the doctor. Our reception staff will advise you of this should the situation arise.

Home Visits

Home visits are made to patients too ill or frail to attend the surgery.

Patients are requested to telephone before 10.30am if a visit is required that day.

All requests for home visits will be referred to the Duty Doctor. We ask you to come into the Medical Centre whenever possible as we want all of our patients to be able to access modern and comprehensive health care. Our Medical Centre has been designed to accommodate the needs of people with all kinds of disabilities and we are able to assess and treat most problems more quickly and much more effectively. Please remember that several patients can be seen at the Medical Centre in the time it takes to visit a patient.

NEW TELEPHONE APPOINTMENTS WITH THE GPs

We have been very pleased with the results of our National GP satisfaction survey.  It shows us that 94% of those who responded are very satisfied with the overall level of care that we provide.

Full practice results can be found at

www.gp-patient.co.uk/results

We are always looking for areas to improve and have therefore decided to trial a new Telephone Appointment Service.  This will enable patients to access their GP by telephone for problems that can be managed effectively and safely without the need for a face to face appointment.

This service will be introduced on the 13th June 2011.  Please book a telephone appointment with Reception after seeing your GP at the practice or when phoning in. These telephone appointments will be available mid morning on a daily basis; your GP will contact you at an allotted time to review your problem.  Please note - these appointments are not available for booking online.

What can you do to help?

• Make sure that we have the correct contact details.  The Receptionist will check your contact telephone number with you when booking the appointment.
• Make sure that you are available to receive the call at the given time.  Please allow for a telephone call one hour before and one hour after your slot, as the GP may be called away to an emergency.
• If you have a mobile number recorded on your patient record, we will send you a text message reminding you of your telephone appointment 24 hours in advance.
• If your problem or query has been resolved, please do let us know so that we can offer the telephone appointment slot to another patient.

WE HOPE YOU WILL FIND THIS NEW SERVICE ACCESSIBLE, EFFICIENT AND CUSTOMER FRIENDLY, ENHANCING THE OVERALL PATIENT EXPERIENCE AND CARE RECEIVED.

Telephone Advice

If appropriate, you may obtain advice by telephone from the Duty Nurse or Duty Doctor.  Other doctors may be able to take or make calls after morning surgery. 

Should this be the case, you will be given a specific time when the doctor will be able to telephone you on a given number at a pre – arranged time. 

However, the doctors are unable to leave messages if they do not get a reply from the number you have given, because of patient confidentiality. You will be asked your name, date of birth and address as a means of identity.

YOU CAN NOW BOOK GP APPOINTMENTS ONLINE

PLEASE READ THE INFORMATION BELOW

Online Appointment Booking

In order to access this service, you need to come into the surgery where you will receive a username and password.  Once you've registered, you will be able to book routine GP appointments and also request repeat prescriptions online.

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE ONLINE SERVICES

PATIENTS WITH EMIS ACCESS LOGIN DETAILS

If you previously used the EMISaccess website to book appointments or request repeat prescriptions, you will now have to use a different one - SystmOnline - due to the change in computer systems at the Practice.  You will be able to use the same login details.

On EMISaccess, you will have used the following information to log in:

• Access ID
• Practice ID - (1848)
• password

On SystmOnline, you will need:

• username
• password

Your SystmOnline user name will be 'AccessID_1848'. Your password remains the same.

As SystmOnline has stricter password requirements than EMISaccess, you are encouraged to change your password the first time you log in so that it is at least eight characters and includes at least one number and one non-alphanumeric character, e.g. '!' or '?'

If you have forgotten your EMISaccess details, please let us know.  We will provide them for you and reset your password.