Consultations and Home Visits

 

 

Urgent Problems

We suggest that patients attend the open access morning surgeries.  A limited number of afternoon appointments are reserved for urgent problems and can be booked on the day.

 

Open Surgeries or Appointments

We offer a choice of open surgeries or pre-booked appointments; further information is available below.

 

If you would like to book an appointment online, please enquire about registering for this service by email to contact.merepark@nhs.net

 

If you are already registered, please login to Emis Access.

 

 

 

 

 

No appointment is needed to see the Doctor on weekday mornings - Monday to Friday.  Patients are seen in the order in which they arrive and may usually see the doctor of their choice if they express a preference.  To help make this system work we would like to raise these points and thank you for your co-operation:

• Monday morning and Friday evening surgeries can be quite busy.  When convenient, for non urgent problems, it would be helpful if you attend at alternative consulting times.
• You may wish to take advantage of our option to “book-in” and return later in the morning, closer to the time you will be seen.  Please ask the receptionist about this when you arrive.
• Patients should try to see the same doctor for an on-going illness, but for a minor illness should see the doctor with the least patients waiting.
• Patients attending near the end of a surgery, or if a doctor is particularly busy, may be asked to see the doctor with the shortest list in order to avoid excessive waiting times.

 

Prebooked  Appointments can be made up to 6 weeks in advance for Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday afternoons and now for Saturday morning (please note there is no practice nurse on Saturday mornings which will mean we cannot offer our full range of services).

From the end of September 2009, you are able to book appointments online if you have registered for this service with the practice.  

 

Consultation Duration

Approximately 10 – 12 minutes is allocated per consultation.  If you attend with a list of problems please be realistic as to what can be covered in this time as we also have to document the consultation.

 

If you have an appointment we ask you to ensure that you keep it, or cancel in good time, so that it can be re-allocated.

 

As you would expect everyone working at the Medical Centre to treat you courteously, appropriately and fairly, we also expect this of our patients and if someone is rude or abusive to any member of the Medical Centre, they may be removed from our list.

 

HOME VISITS

These are available for those who are too unwell, disabled or frail to attend the Medical Centre.  Whenever possible please request home visits before 10.30am so we can plan our house calls.  The receptionist will ask for some details about the nature of the problem in order for the Doctors to prioritise calls.

 

Patients can be examined more thoroughly, computer records fully accessed and further investigations carried out when required in the Medical Centre so please make every effort to keep home visit requests for genuine reasons, not for convenience or because of transport difficulties.  It is safe to bring children with temperatures or a rash to the Medical Centre but please inform the receptionist on arrival.  Remember a Doctor can see several patients in the Medical Centre in the time it takes to do one home visit.