Byhowbeck
Appointments
Appointments are automatically released daily on our booking system and can be booked online of via the telephone. If you require an appointment you can contact the surgery and we will offer you our next available telephone appointment with a clinician, this will usually be with an Advanced Care Practitioner (ACP). If our ACP requires you to be seen for face to face appointment they will book this for you, alternatively if your problem requires a GP they will arrange this for you too.
We have a number of video consultation appointments daily if you wish to speak to a Clinician over our video links in the privacy of your own home.
It is practice policy that all patients will be asked by our reception team for a brief reason for their appointment and when booking online we ask that you provide a brief reason for your appointment too. This is a requirement asked by our GPs as it enables clinicians a short amount of time to prepare for your consultation. Knowing the reason for your call helps GPs prioritise and allows us to book the right length of time for your appointments. We want you to get the right appointment; this may not necessarily be with a GP but could be a Advanced Care Practiioner Practitioner, Practice Nurse, Health Care Assistant or Clinical Pharmacist.
There are also number enquiries that the reception team can deal with directly, these include medication queries, administrative queries and much more. In some cases we can simply assist you at the first point of call. We thank you for supporting active signposting at our Practice.
Providing you have updated us with your current mobile number, you will be sent a SMS confirmation of your appointment and a reminder. You are able to cancel appointments via SMS also.
Please note all our appointments are 10 minutes for one reason only. GPs will ask patients to re book if they wish to discuss further matters.
If you have an urgent acute problem we offer additional ‘sit and wait appointments’ on the day, when all timed appointments have already been booked.
To ensure these appointments are used for those with acute / urgent problems, our GPs will not be able to see patients on a sit and wait for reviews, follow ups or fit note requests. Please be aware that our GPs reserve the right to decline routine requests if this service is misused.
You will be invited to come to the practice either in the morning or afternoon dependent on when you contact us and wait your turn to be seen by the next available GP (waiting time up to 1hr). Patients are normally seen in order of booking, although doctors reserve the right to see patients out of order for clinical reasons. We unfortunately cannot offer you a choice of which doctor you see during this session but you WILL be seen.
If you are not able to attend your appointment, we ask that you cancel this with a minimum of 1 hours’ notice so that we are able to offer another patient the use of that appointment.
We have a STRICT policy for patients who regularly miss their appointments which ultimately will result in the removal of them/their family from the practice list.
If you are late for your appointment you will be seen ONLY in exceptional circumstances and at the discretion of the clinician.
In an effort to improve the care and service we give our patients we offer telephone consultations for those patients who may not necessarily need to come to the surgery. These telephone appointments can be booked anything up to two weeks in advance. They are designed for patients to speak to the doctor and nurses for approximately five minutes about ailments/medical problems that do not have to be face to face e.g. medication reviews, questions about medications, results, follow ups where the GP advises that a discussion over the phone is sufficient.
These telephone calls are NOT intended for patients to purely get REPEAT prescriptions via the GP. Please see our note on precriptions on how to get them.
Our receptionists will offer this type of consultation as an alternative to coming into the practice.
Chaperones
If you anticipate that you may require an examination by the Doctor and feel that you would like a chaperone to be present, please make reception aware at the time of booking your appointment so that this can be arranged.