Please note telephone calls might be recorded for quality and training purposes.

We have taken the decision to withdraw GP appointments available for direct online booking. Instead, we invite our patients to go to their NHS App, or our website main page and submit a request for an appointment via eConsult.

Patients can also telephone for an appointment during our opening hours. 

APPOINTMENTS WITH OTHER HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS

We added some additional online appointments for Health Care Assistants, Nurses, Pharmacist medication reviews and Physiotherapist telephone assessments.

These appointments are specific and we have named them accordingly, for example:
B12 injection
Smear
Baby Immunisation
Diabetic Review

Appointments with nurses and other clinical staff may be booked in advance online, in person or via the telephone subject to availability. 

Please note that young children must be accompanied by a parent/guardian when attending for a consultation. If any child is brought to the surgery by another person (i.e. grandparent, nanny) then written consent, signed by a parent authorising medical treatment, will be required before a doctor or nurse can treat the child. 

eConsult is a clever bit of software that allows patients to quickly and safely get help and advice from their own doctors
and GP practice online, for free, from anywhere.

eConsult is a form-based online consultation & triage platform that collects patients' medical or administrative request and sends it through to their GP practice to triage and decide on the right care for them.

eConsult is available to use any time, day or night, from any device connected to the internet. There is no need to wait in a phone queue or visit the practice. It takes just 3-4 minutes to complete an eConsult and the surgery will acknowledge receipt of the submission within one working day.

Click here to submit an eConsult

It is important that you inform the reception staff if you are unable to attend your appointment, this will allow that appointment to be offered to another patient. If you fail to notify the Practice that you are unable to attend, you will be sent a letter informing you that you have defaulted from your appointment. Persistent defaulters maybe removed from the list.

CANCELLATIONS 

If you are unable to keep an appointment please let us know as soon as possible so that your time may be offered to someone else in need. 
To cancel an appointment you can call the surgery, use your online account or text your name, date & time of appt to: 07594715982   

We have a texting service which allows you to recieve confirmation and reminders about your appointments.

To have this service you will need to register by completing a consent form.

Please remeber to update your contact details with us when you change address, telephone numbers and email address.

Please attend your appointment on time, if you are late you may not be seen. If you are not seen you will not be able to rearrange your appointment until the next working day-except in the event of an medical emergency that requires immediate attention.

If you require an interpreter to attend with you when you see your Doctor please notify the receptionist and she will arrange this for you.

We are receiving increasing amount of requests for “urgent or emergency visits” during surgery hours.  

Whilst every effort is made to accommodate requests for visits, it is our duty and responsibility to provide the most appropriate care for you in the most timely manner, from the information which you provide to us. 

Any request for a home visit must be received before 11am Monday to Friday, and be for housebound patients only. 

On occasion therefore, where we are unable to provide a suitable response to your request you may be advised to call 999 to seek emergency medical assistance, or be directed to a more appropriate resource. The decision to visit lies with the doctor after evaluating the problem.  Often a telephone call is made to the person requesting the visit either by a doctor or a nurse in order to gather further information.

Visit requests received in the morning are prioritised and undertaken between the hours of 1.00pm and 4.00pm. 

The surgery phone lines will close at 6.30pm on weekday nights.

All cover from 6.30pm to 8.00am weekdays and over the weekends (including Bank Holiday periods) will be provided by the current Out-of-Hours provider, the New Primecare GP centre based at Broomfield Hospital. 

To seek non-emergency medical advice outside of normal surgery hours, please call 111

What to expect:

The operator will ask you for details of your problem - depending on the nature of your illness/complaint you will then speak to a doctor, a nurse or another clinician who will assess you.

They will either:

• Give you advice over the telephone on how to treat yourself at home or to visit a local pharmacy
• Ask you to attend the primary care centre where you may be treated by either a doctor, a nurse, or an emergency care practitioner
• Arrange for you to have a home visit from either a doctor, a nurse or an emergency acre practitioner
• In some cases, for example at very busy times, a doctor a nurse or an emergency care practitioner may call you back as quickly as possible.

In the event of a medical emergency please call 999 and ask for the ambulance service.

Enhanced Access to GP Services

Previously ‘Extended Access’ appointments were planned by Mid Essex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) on behalf of many GP practices in the area. From Saturday 1 October 2022, this is now being planned and delivered locally by Primary Care Networks (PCNs – small groups of neighbouring surgeries working together).

PCNs are being asked to offer enhanced access appointments in the evenings and on Saturdays. Not all surgeries in the PCN will be able to offer appointments on the same days and times; it will vary between them.

When we asked our patients what they wanted from these appointments you said you wanted to be seen by us, at our surgery. You also wanted more GP appointments.

Working within the constraints of our current workforce, we will be offering:

Monday morning 7am-8am

• Blood tests at Sidney House, Hatfield Peverel
• Online pre-bookable GP telephone appointments

Tuesday morning 7am-8am

• Online pre-bookable GP telephone appointments and minor illness telephone appointments with the Paramedic

Thursday morning 7am-8am

• Blood tests at Sidney House, Hatfield Peverel

Thursday evening 6:30pm – 8:30pm

• Pre-bookable telephone appointments with a Nurse Prescriber

Friday evenings

• Pre-bookable telephone appointments with a GP

We may be able to offer more variety of appointments in the future, depending on staff availability.

We are currently looking at extending our appointments to incorporate online booking for Health Care Assistants, Nurses, Pharmacist medication reviews and Physiotherapist telephone assessments.  These appointments are specific and we have named them accordingly, hoping that patients will take care to book into the appropriate slots only.  If, however, patients book into a specific slot for anything other than what the slot is intended for, this may result in the clinician being unable to offer treatment.   Slots with "Telephone" in the wording are a telephone call from the clinician; the others are face to face appointments at one of the surgeries.  When you book online, the reminder SMS will tell you which surgery the appointment is at.    These new online appointments are available to book for up to 4 weeks in advance  (The booking of GPs telephone appointments will remain the same – with appointments being available for booking from 6pm the day before)   In these early stages we have only released a few appointments, but will increase the availability slowly as we go along.  We are hoping this will prove to be successful and will help patients who struggle to call us during normal hours.    

Clinician:                                   Appointment type:

Self Service:                          *Blood Pressure SELF Service ONLY - NO Clinician

Health Care Assistants:          *B12 Injections Only (in surgery) (pre-bookable)

Nurse:                                   * Contraceptive Pill Review Only (in surgery) (pre-bookable)     *Cervical Smear Only (in surgery) (pre-bookable)

Physiotherapist:                     * Telephone Call with Physiotherapist   (pre-bookable)

GPs:                                      * Telephone call with GP   (GP telephone appointments will be released from 6PM the day before)

Paramedic:                            * Paramedic Minor Illness tel apt - urine, cough...