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Seeing a Doctor
GP Appointments
Open Surgery
Telephone Consultations
Home Visits
GP Appointments
Used for any physical or mental health
problem, chronic illness follow up, and some minor surgical procedures.
All appointments need to be booked by
telephone or at the reception desk. Most are available from 8.30am to
5.30pm, each lasts 10 minutes. About half can be booked ahead, as
some slots are reserved for on-the-day booking. If you have
several problems to discuss, it will help us if you can book a double
appointment. We also offer a limited number of early morning and
evening appointments every week.
Howden believes strongly that continuity of
care by one doctor offers the best model for medical care, particularly
for long-term conditions. Although we respect your right to choose
to see any of our doctors for your healthcare, we suggest you try to see
the same person for most of your visits. When your usual GP is
unavailable (e.g. on leave), you may arrange to see another GP.
If your problem is of an urgent nature, and
all the available appointments have been booked up, you can see our duty doctor.
However, the duty doctor will not deal with more routine matters, and
will ask you to see your usual GP to deal with them.
Special note -
Chaperones: If you are attending for an
intimate examination and wish to have another member of staff present to
act as a chaperone, please inform the receptionist at the time of
booking your appointment.
Open Surgery
We also run an
open access surgery from 9.30am
to 11am, Monday to Friday.
This is staffed by 2 GPs, and is able to
deal with up to 24 people who attend
without a prearranged appointment.
To access
this service, all you need to do is
report to reception between 9.30am and
11am, and have your name added to the
open access surgery list. You
cannot phone in advance for this
surgery. You will be asked to wait in a
specified area, and your name will be
called when it is your turn. We
will tell you if the surgery is already
filled to capacity, and if so please
speak to the receptionists about the
alternative appointments we offer.
We continue to have a duty doctor every
afternoon if your problem is urgent.
As it is
a first-come first-served
system,
we ask you to be prepared to wait your
turn. Also, please do not ask the
GPs to deal with multiple problems in
this surgery, as time is limited, and
others will be waiting their turn too.
Telephone Consultations
Many
problems can be dealt without a face to face contact with a GP or nurse,
which may save you a trip to the Health Centre.
If it is a routine problem, or to follow up a
previous appointment or phone call, please leave a message for the
clinician concerned via our secretaries.
Home Visits
Home
visits are available for patients who are housebound.
These can be planned in advance by the
patient's usual GP, or may be dealt with by the Duty Doctor if not
foreseen. Please request such a visit before 10am if possible.
Other patients may be seen at home only if the
GP considers that their condition would be seriously worsened by travel.
As this is usually not the case, we encourage people to attend the
Health Centre when possible, as the facilities for examination are much
better, and it is a more efficient use of our GPs' time.
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