Our patients are already used to being asked the nature of the consultation for emergency appointments. This is so that we can plan the most appropriate type of treatment for you, which may not necessarily be a face to face consultation at the surgery.

In the near future, we shall be extending this procedure to ALL ROUTINE APPOINTMENTS as well. This will enable us to prioritise your care, ensure that all the information required for a successful consultaion is available in advance, and to ensure also that you are seeing the most appropriate clinician. It may well be that some matters can be dealt with over the telephone, to save you an unnecessary visit to the surgery. On occasions, it may also mean that we bring forward the timing of the appointment, if we consider the matter more urgent. By doing this, we hope that we shall be able to deliver better care all round.

Please be assured that , if you are asked why you are booking an appointment, it is not simply the case that the Receptionist is being nosey or obstructive, but that as a team we are trying to improve the quality of the care we provide, and save you unnecessary or wasted visits to the surgery.

If you have any concerns about this, please feel free to speak to Alan Packard ( Practice Manager) or one of the GPs