Appointments
Our surgery has a triage telephone system. The purpose of triage is to ensure that every patient requesting an appointment is referred to the most appropriate service. Each patient will discuss with the receptionist who will arrange an appropriate appointment for you, this may be in person or by telephone. If it is not appropriate for one of our clinicians they may advise you to contact the chemist, Dentist or Optician.
The triage system will work as follows:
- Contact the surgery by telephone on 01467 642289 and press option 2 to speak to a receptionist
- Please provide the receptionist with a brief description of the problem so they can direct you to the appropriate clinician. Please have a contact number ready to give them.
- Our administration staff are trained to help provide you with the best service. They are working under our instructions, and are bound by the same code of confidentiality as the clinical staff.
- If you have contacted the practice and been advised that an Emergency clinician will call you back this number will appear as a 0300 number. Please ensure you keep your phone beside you and stay within service range. Two attempts will be made to speak with you. If after two attempts, we have still been unable to speak with you this call will then be closed.
If you do still wish to speak to our Emergency clinician, you will need to phone the surgery back to start the process again.
For those whose occupation or responsibilities have an impact upon availability to receive a triage call at certain times of day, please make this known to the receptionist. Please ask them to insert a comment specifying this. Whilst we cannot guarantee, we will endeavour to accommodate where possible. Calls to the triage line will be accepted after 8.30 am.
Cancellations
If you are unable to manage an appointment, please let us know as soon as possible so that the appointment can be reallocated. Failing to keep appointments wastes considerable medical and administrative time. Dozens of appointments are “lost” each month because patients simply fail to cancel unwanted appointments.
When patients miss appointments, it can be disruptive for both healthcare providers and other patients in need of care. This is a particular concern for GP's, who are responsible for the overall care of patients.
Patients arriving more than 10 minutes late for an appointment will require to re-book another appointment time
Medical & Nursing Students
The practice frequently undertakes teaching of 4th and 5th year medical students and nursing students from the University of Aberdeen. You will always be advised if there is a student sitting in on consultations and asked for your consent.
Language Barriers
There is a Language Line available, to patients who are not fluent in the English language. Please le reception team aware and we can arrange for interpreting service.
Home Visit
All requests for Home Visits WILL BE TELEPHONE TRIAGED BY GP OR NURSE
A doctor or nurse may phone you back as it may be that your problem can be dealt with by telephone advice, or that it would be more appropriate to send a nurse, or indeed arrange a hospital attendance.
House visits are only available for patients who are housebound because of illness or disability.
Please remember that several patients can be seen in the practice in the time that it takes to make one home visit. There are also better facilities for examining and treating patients at the Health Centre.
You can be visited at home by a community nurse if you are referred by your GP. You should also be visited at home by a health visitor if you have recently had a baby or if you are newly registered with a GP and have a child under five years.