Appointments

Book your appointment 

All routine: doctor, pharmacist medication review, and blood test appointments are able to be booked via The NHS app or through the Patient Access app.

You can also book your next appointment by contacting our reception team on 0118 972 2188.

Because of booking constraints, specialist clinics and treatment room appointments, can only be booked through calling reception.

Cancelling your appointment

Please call us if you are unable to keep your appointment. It means that we can offer your appointment to another patient. Call us on 0118 972 2188 or email schcreception@nhs.net.  If you booked via the NHS App you can cancel your appointment using this.

Routine doctor appointments  

Telephone or Face to Face appointments for 10-15 mins each appointment.

We aim to offer routine appointments with our doctors within 10 days.  This time frame may be longer if you want an appointment with a particular doctor due to individual doctor availability.  Please call to book with our reception team 0118 972 2188.

Please note, for telephone appointments, a doctor will phone you; please be available up to an hour after the scheduled time.

“Usual Doctor”

We believe that patients get better care by having a regular GP who knows their background.

• All patients are allocated a usual doctor, to try to get continuity.
• We encourage you to see the same doctor, about the same problem, when possible.
• You are free to choose to see any GP about any problem, and we may indeed suggest seeing certain members of the team who may have a special interest.
• Given workload pressures, we use a duty doctor rota to provide urgent cover.  Depending on the urgency and type of problem, you may be directed to another member of the team, in order to get continuity.
• No GP works 5 days a week any more in clinic. We also have lots of training and governance demands on time.  To cover this and leave, we use a buddy system to ensure that all results/letters/requests are processed in a timely way.

Urgent appointments

Urgent appointments are available on the day.  If your problem is urgent, a doctor (not necessarily your own doctor) will call you back as soon as possible. Please note however, if you telephone after 4.30pm and it is not medically urgent, the doctor may not be able to return your call on the same day.

These appointments must be medically urgent for that day.  These appointments are offered in order – by the next urgent appointment that is available. Unfortunately by the very nature of these appointments we cannot offer a choice of time. Please call to book with our reception team 0118 972 2188.

Home visits

If you, or a relative, are too ill to travel to the health centre or have a disability and you would like a home visit please call 0118 972 2188 before 10am, if possible.

A doctor or nurse may phone you back as it may be that your problem can be dealt with by telephone advice or indeed arrange a hospital attendance. Please note that home visits are only available for patients who are housebound because of illness or disability.

Chaperones

We have clinical staff who have been trained to act as chaperones.  The role of a chaperone is to provide reassurance and emotional support for a patient whilst undergoing a procedure they may find embarrassing or uncomfortable.

If you would like a chaperone to be present for an examination, we will be very pleased to arrange one for you.  If you know in advance please feel free to ask the receptionist, or you can ask the doctor or nurse during the consultation.  

More info here: Practice Policies

Clinical Pharmacist appointments

Telephone or Face to Face Appointments

Our Clinical Pharmacists are involved in the following duties and work closely with our GPs and nurses:

• Repeat prescription reauthorisations
• Medication and prescription queries from patients
• Chemist queries
• Acute or past medication requests
• Annual medication reviews, including blood test requests and blood pressure checks
• Hospital letters – discharge or clinic letters where medications have been stopped, withheld, altered, started
• Requests for NOMAD packs
• Contraceptive pill reviews
• HRT medication reviews
• Anti-depressant medication reviews
• Pain medication reviews

Blood test appointments

Phlebotomy appointments are available every weekday morning. You can book them online through the NHS App or Patient Access, or by calling the reception team at 0118 972 2188.

We also offer Saturday morning blood appointments every other week at Townlands Hospital. These appointments can only be booked by calling our reception team.

Please note one of our clinicians must have authorised the blood test prior to you booking your phlebotomy appointment, unless it is required for your annual medication review.

If an NHS hospital is requesting a blood test, please ensure you have the necessary paperwork to bring to the appointment.  We are unable to process hospital requests without the correct paperwork.

Non-NHS blood test must be booked by telephone as these may incur a charge which is payable prior to the appointment.

eConsult – Online Service (NB switched off over Bank Holiday Weekends)

Please Note – this is not the same as an appointment.   It is rare that a new condition can be dealt through eConsult alone, and majority of clinical issues put through eConsult, result in us asking you to make a routine appointment.

However this online service is great for administrative requests, as it will prompt you for most of the information we will need, for us to help you.

Text Message Reminders

We have a text message system which will send reminders for clinical appointments by text.  If your patient record contains your mobile number you will receive a notification when you make your appointment followed by a reminder 48 hours before the appointment.