Practice policies

We aim to provide the best possible service and our practice policies are designed to help us achieve that aim. Familiarising yourself with our policies will help you understand how we work and will help you and others receive a better service.

Your contact details

Please let us know if you change your phone number or move house.  It is important that we have your up-to-date contact details. Everyday, we contact patients with details of test results, changes to treatment plans or to make follow-up appointments. When possible, we do this by telephone as it is the quickest method and allows a discussion of the meaning of the results. However, if your contact details are not correct we have to post this information to you, and the information or subsequent treatments may be delayed. Also, should you be referred to another doctor for a hospital appointment, the appointments will be sent to the address that we have for you. If this address we have is wrong, there may be a delay in your treatment.

Appointments

We will always give you the next available appointment. However, to allow us to provide enough appointments to everyone, we have to take into account the reason for your appointment. Therefore, when booking an appointment, our receptionists will always ask the reason for your appointment to allow them to direct you appropriately. This is essential for us to provide the best possible service. Please be assured all information is treated confidentially and you only need to give a brief description of the problem/reason for for the appointment.

For example, it may be more appropriate for you to be seen by a member of our experienced clinical team, which may not be the GP (we have a pharmacist and a health care assistant). We are also able to point you towards other services (e.g., your local pharmacy for minor ailments and minor injuries unit for recent injuries) that are better able to address your problem/health care requirements and can do so more quickly.

Not attending appointments

If a patient misses an appointment this impacts on other patients in the practice who could have had that appointment. Therefore, we have a policy that if you do not attend an appointment or do not notify us within 30 minutes of your appointment time, this will be considered a ‘DNA’ (did not attend). If you have 3 or more DNA’s in one year you will be asked to register at another practice. Please remember, you can always cancel your appointment by calling the practice or by following the link in your text reminder.

Zero tolerance for abuse

We have a zero tolerance policy towards anyone who is verbally or physically abusive towards our staff. Our staff are entitled to work in an environment that is free from verbal and physical abuse. Therefore, anyone who is verbally or physically abusive towards our staff  will be removed from our practice list.

Tests 

Tests (e.g., blood tests or X-rays) can be extremely helpful and our clinical team will always recommend a test if they think the balance of risk versus benefit is in your favour (e.g., to confirm a diagnosis). However, unnecessary tests can lead to unnecessary treatment and or other tests that may cause harm. The reasons for this is that no test is perfect and test results can come back outside the ‘normal range’ but at a level that may never have caused you any harm but may encourage both you and the doctor to investigate further by doing yet more tests. These additional tests are often more invasive (e.g., a biopsy or a CT scan which requires injection of contrast material into a vein) and risk harming you (e.g., infection/bleeding/pain if it is a biopsy or unecessary exposure to radtiation if it is an X-ray or CT scan). An example of an unnecessary test is where a patient might ask for a ‘general blood test’ to ‘check how things are’. There is no such thing as a general blood test as each test can only rule in or rule out specific conditions/causes (and they never do that perfectly). If you do not have signs or symptoms of a health problem it is often best to not have a test for that problem but there are exceptions to this and doctors and nurses are trained to help you understand when a test is a good idea or not. It is best to understand the pros and cons of doing any test before they are done and always ask if a test is in your best interest.