Dear Patient,
When you contact the practice, your call will be triaged to either
- urgent on the day or next
- soon which may be within a week
- routine (in due course) which may be 2 weeks from now
Our staff will send you a message to your NHS app or as a text message explaining how it has been triaged before the end of the day explaining whether you will be contacted urgently, soon or in due course and whether you should contact the pharmacy, the MSK practitioner or go to the PCN clinic instead.
We offer on average over 500 appointments a day. Due to a surge in demand from patients, holidays or strike action amongst staff and clinicians, there may be times when it may take longer to be seen or contacted. Please phone the surgery again if you are worried and need a more urgent call.
There are a few things you can do to help yourself:
Firstly please make sure you and your loved ones have full access to the NHS app. If you are unsure how to do this then please ask the practice staff who will be only too happy to help. This is the gateway to the NHS.
Secondly please try to prevent problems by ordering your repeat prescriptions a week before they are due via the NHS app. This gives us and your nominated pharmacy ample time to get your medication ready for you to collect. Put a reminder on your mobile phone to order your prescriptions and try to order them all at once. It saves you time and you are less likely to forget your tablets.
Thirdly your pharmacist is an expert on many common minor ailments such as earache (for people aged 1-17 years), impetigo (aged 1 year and over), infected insect bites (aged 1 year and over), shingles (aged 18 and over), sinusitis (aged 12 years and over), sore throat (aged 5 years and over) and urinary tract infections or UTIs for women aged 16 to 64. Learn more about Pharmacy First here.
Fourthly please take a look at the practice website www.htmc.co.uk. There are lots of useful resources to help you understand your care including common problems you can solve. This has the top 50 things people contact a GP surgery with when they could have sorted things out themselves without the need for a doctors appointment. There you will find practical advice on why to do, when it is safe for you to self care, when you should contact the GP surgery and when you should call 999 or go to A&E. There are also other practice services such as anxiety and depression, asthma, diabetes, back pain, child care and more for you to get a better understanding of your long term condition and what else you can do.
Fifthly please remember to log into your NHS app and review your GP electronic health record to see recent consultations, blood test results or scans and letters that may have come back from the hospital or other provider.
Finally, before contacting the surgery think have you tried to help yourself by checking NHS Choices or the practice website for information. Have you considered asking the pharmacist? Have you looked at your record to see if there is something there to help you? Is it a new problem or something you have already spoken to somebody about already whom you would prefer to speak to? Try to write down as much as you can about the problem to provide as much information as you can. Think about why you are worried and what you hope to get from the consultation. If you need a fit note, explain why you do not think you are able to work. Tell us if there are particular times you do not want to be contacted. Tell us which phone number you would prefer us to contact you with. Take photographs of any rashes or lesions that you may be worried about and upload them. If you have a letter then upload a copy of the letter. Keep your phone with you, fully charged and switched on and make sure it is not on silent so that you can hear it when it rings.
GPs and their practice teams provide the vast majority of NHS care outside of hospitals, supporting you and your family throughout your lives.
In a perfect world, we want to be able to offer every patient safety, stability and hope for the future.
We aim to respond to all appointment and advice requests promptly, prioritising those most in need. Sometimes we may need to offer you an appointment on another day or direct you to another suitable service.
For safety reasons, urgent medical requests cannot be accepted via our online system. For something urgent, pick up the phone or walk in to our reception. The need to prioritise urgent cases to keep patients safe can result in longer waiting times for routine/non-urgent appointments.
The new requirement to allow patients unlimited online access for non- urgent medical requests, throughout core hours, makes it more likely that we will have no choice but to create hospital-style waiting lists to meet patient need. We want to guide you through the NHS, co-ordinate your care, and support you to stay healthy. We want every patient to feel safe and confident in their GP practice – now and in the future.
Please see the GP charter on the practice website for more information.
GPs are on your side.