Appointments

GPs are now triaging all requests for doctor appointments

As of Monday, 3rd of March 2025, all appointment requests to see the doctor will be triaged.

This a “Modern General Practice” model to make access to care and treatment easier for patients and improve patient satisfaction. This is a national NHS project, and all general practices must adopt this system by 31^st March 2025.

Patients will need to register for PATCHS (our online consultation platform) via our website to submit their request by completing the form, providing as much information as possible.

We appreciate that this may not be possible for some patients and have provisions in place to help with this.

If you are unable or do not have access to the internet, then you can contact the surgery in the usual way and one of our receptionists will complete the form for you either over the telephone or in person. This will be added to the triage list for the GP to review and triage in the same way.

All clinical requests will be triaged by one of our experienced GPs who will decide what the best course of action is. To help our doctors prioritise patients who may need more urgent care, where necessary we may need to ask a few more questions.

The triaging GP will either offer you a Face to Face or Telephone appointment bookable by a “self-book” link, or you may receive a reply with self-care advice or signposted to a more appropriate service.

We understand change can sometimes be difficult, but we are confident that Total Triage will have many benefits including:

• Addressing the increasing demand for appointments
• Avoid the frustration of the 8am telephone rush.
• Reduce waiting times for appointments.
• Make accessing the practice more convenient.

Routine appointments will be changing from 10 to 15 minutes to accommodate patients who have multiple problems which they need to discuss or who just need a little extra time.

Emergency appointments will remain at 10 minutes and will be for ONE urgent problem only.