The perfect appointment system for general practice has not yet been invented, there has to be a compromise between seeing patients with acute illnesses and those with chronic conditions. We have a mandatory government target that anyone who wishes to be seen in the practice MUST be offered an appointment within 48 hours with a health care professional. The knock on effect of the target setting by the government is that we have to make sure that we keep most of our appointments for people who phone in on the day with a very small number for people with special transportation needs and others with work issues. We believe that the system we have adopted at Brunel is the best that is available.

Previously patients could wait for anything up to 4 weeks to see the doctor of their choice. We never seemed to have enough appointments to meet demand! We don’t wish to go back to this old system where patients were given appointments weeks in advance – quite often the condition they had phoned about had improved naturally or they didn’t turn up and that appointment was wasted or people who were acutely ill had to battle to get a slot on the day they became unwell. The downside to our present system is that patients have to ring on the day to be seen. This does mean that when we have doctors on leave, at courses, clinical and administrative meetings or even believe it or not - ill, we can run short of appointments. When it is obvious that we are running short we increase the number seen by each doctor in the morning and afternoon, and enlist the help of our nursing team. We do our best but sometimes even then we find it very difficult to match patient demand.

We thought it a good idea to pass on a few tips on how to make the system work more efficiently so we can provide the best possible service to you.

The hardest time to get through to the surgery on the phone is between 8:30 – 9:30 every morning but especially Monday and Fridays

Not surprisingly Mondays and Fridays are by far the busiest days of the week. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays are normally quieter. Wednesday seems to be the day of the week where we are most likely to have free appointments.

You don’t always need to see a doctor – if you require a routine blood pressure check, requesting a routine repeat of regular medication for example the pill or HRT medication, you should be asking to see a nurse. If you will require a prescription please let the receptionist know so we can make sure your prescription is signed when you see the nurse.

We spend a lot of time looking at results from the hospital such as blood tests, x rays and Ultrasound scans.

PLEASE don’t phone at our busy times!

                If you want to know your results ring between 10am and 2pm

As a general rule though when results are significant enough to cause a change in treatment or further tests to be carried out – WE WILL CONTACT YOU to make an appointment. Please don’t expect our administrative staff to offer an interpretation of your blood tests – The doctors and nurses review dozens of tests per day and we put a very quick comment on the patient’s notes. If you feel that you would actually like to get some personal feedback on your tests request to speak to the GPs’ designated secretary who will look into it with the GP who requested the blood or x-ray examination. We do not have access to any test results organised by a consultant or their team on our patients at an out patients clinic. They send us a summary of all their findings when they review the patients at their follow up appointment – patients now receive a copy of those letters. If you want to discuss the contents or findings discussed in the letter we are very happy to do so.

If you are ringing to book an appointment at one of our special nurse run clinics such as Diabetes, Asthma, or Heart Disease when you have received a letter from us – PLEASE Ring Between 12 Noon and 2 PM to avoid blocking the telephone lines for more urgent calls.

Many of the minor illnesses we see could be dealt with by other healthcare professionals. Your local pharmacist has a particular expertise with drugs you can buy over the counter. NHS Direct 0845 4647 is also available during the day and offers advice from specially trained and experienced nurses. Our nurses are experienced in dealing with straight forward minor problems. As a practice we are doing our best to reduce our prescribing of antibiotics in order to try and reduce the incidence of MRSA type bugs. Simple things like sore throats of a short duration, sinusitis, and coughs are generally viral infections which have to run their course but despite this we still see a significant number of patients daily with these conditions.

If we are very short of appointments we will offer the patient a ring back from the GP after their surgery. If you feel that your problem could be dealt with by a simple short phone call rather than an appointment please let the staff know when you are speaking to them. They will make the necessary arrangements – if you want us to ring back a mobile number please have it ready.

We quite often see patients who come in to have paperwork, certificates or sick notes completed. This is becoming an increasing part of our workload and much of it is unnecessary. Patients should be able to fill out a self certificate for the first 7 days of illness. If your employer won’t accept a self certificate we can issue another certificate but there will be a charge for this service which at present is £10. If you require a certificate for the Department of Work and Pensions because you are on long term sickness benefit – you can request a certificate renewal by phone from the GP’s secretary. We will get in touch if we wish to see you. We are always happy to complete the paperwork for government benefits but it is best to hand the forms into one of the surgery buildings so we can complete it when we can snatch a few minutes. Please don’t make appointments to hand in the documentation – completing paperwork in a rush is not usually in the patient’s best interests!

If you have any complaints about either the medical or administrative service we provide you first port of call is our Practice Manager. Who will look into your problem and do their best to sort it out. We want to provide a first class service so if there are difficulties we want to know about them!!!