Guide to our Appointment Booking System
Due to a high demand for appointments, we operate a variety of appointments to provide as greater choice to patients as possible‘. Appointments are available:
- Up to 2 weeks in advance, at reception or online. (Please contact reception for secure login details).
Please be aware that the practice cannot be responsible when booking appointments for appointments booked into inappropriate clinics. Some services and procedures, travel, childhood vaccinations etc require specific training and are only available at set times, and from certain GPs or Nurses. If in doubt please contact reception on your usual number. - To book ‘on the day’ through reception for patients who need to be seen as soon as possible.
Non-urgent advice: How Pharmacies can help with minor illnesses
Patients are now able to refer themselves to a Pharmacy for minor illnesses, such as: cold or flu symptoms, sore throat, cough, diarrhoea, skin/rash issues and hay fever.
Fill in an assessment & self refer online



It is easier and quicker to manage your appointments via our online service. Simply log in and select an option.
NHS App
Download the NHS App, or open the NHS website in a web browser, to set up and log in to your NHS account. Owned and run by the NHS, your NHS account is a simple and secure way to access a range of NHS services online, including appointments and prescriptions. Find out how the NHS App works and how to set it up.

Can another Healthcare Professional help?
Do you need to see the GP?
Sometimes the GP is not the most appropriate Healthcare Professional to deal with your ailment. Please see the information on see a Doctor or Healthcare Professional, which might help you decide whether a GP appointment is truly necessary or whether it might be better for you to see a Pharmacist, Optician, Dentist or other Healthcare Professional. You can even self-refer for some services without seeing your GP.
For real life-threatening emergencies such as those below – RING 999
- Chest pain (suspected heart attack)
- Suspected stroke
- Suspected meningitis
- Anaphylactic shock (severe allergy)
- Heavy bleeding or deep lacerations
- Fluctuating levels of consciousness or completely unconscious
- Difficulty breathing or stopped breathing with a change in colour
- New seizure, fit or uncontrollable shaking
For immediately serious conditions such as the following, GO TO Emergency Department (A&E) IMMEDIATELY
- A fever and lethargic (drowsy) child
- A feverish and floppy (unresponsive) infant
- Difficulty breathing
- Sudden, severe abdominal pain
- Accidental or intentional overdose of medication
- Trauma (including falls) and possible broken bones or road traffic accident
Your appointment at the Practice
- Please make one appointment for each member of the family who needs to be seen
- We try to keep to time but please be patient if someone before you takes longer than planned
- Appointments are normally ten minute slots, so if you have a complicated problem, or more than one problem, please ask for a longer appointment
- It is Practice Policy to allow patients to choose whichever Doctor they wish to attend in the Practice
Please help us
If you are not able to attend your appointment please let us know in time so that the time can be used for someone else. If you are late for an appointment you may be asked to re-book.
Missed Appointments and DNA’s
Do you feel frustrated when you cannot get an appointment?
Every year wasted appointments cost NHS £162 million. This can cause serious delays in treatment for other patients. On average approximately 150 patients each month Did Not Attend (DNA) their appointment. This means the patient did not turn up for the appointment and did not contact the surgery in advance to cancel or change the appointment. This currently results in approximately 40 hours of wasted clinical time each month.
Here is a list of the different ways you can access your General Practitioner or Healthcare Professional
Appointments with a Specific GP
You are able to request an appointment with a particular GP of your choice. If this request is in a non-urgent capacity, we advise that you pre-book your appointment as detailed above. If the request is urgent, you may ask for an appointment on the day but please be aware that if that particular GP is unavailable or fully booked, you will be offered an appointment with the next available doctor, or nurse practitioner).
Nurse Appointments
We strongly advise that you book appointments with a nurse as early as possible as they tend to get booked quite quickly. Some appointments need to be booked in to fit in with your current treatment. For example; the contraceptive injection, smears, dressings etc.
To accommodate these types of appointments, we offer some pre – bookable slots with our nurses at the beginning of the morning and some afternoon surgeries.
Our nurse appointment times vary in length depending on the type of consultation. The receptionists need to have an idea what the appointment is for so that they can allocate the right amount of time for you.
Nurse Practitioner Appointments
A nurse practitioner is a nurse who is qualified to examine, diagnose and manage patients illnesses.
They are able to consult and write prescriptions or referrals for you in the same way as a GP, yet they also have all the practical skills of their nurse training.
If you need a doctor’s consultation you could see the nurse practitioner.
We have a superb nurse practitioner: Sandra Swinfield at Gander Green Lane.
Our nurse practitioner works closely with a partner as their mentor and guide so they continue to update their skills. They are a huge asset to our team, as you will discover when you meet them, and greatly ease the workload of the doctors
book on the day/urgent appointments
If you need to consult with your doctor urgently for something that cannot wait until the next advanced booking appointment, you may request an appointment on the same day. You may see your own doctor, or if he/she is not available you may see another doctor or nurse practitioner.
Routine
If you would like to see a doctor in a non-urgent capacity, we advise that you ‘pre-book’ your appointment well before required. You may book these appointments any time up to 28 days in advance. Due to demand early booking is advisable.
Telephone consultations
You may request the GP or nurse practitioner to phone you if you feel that your problem can be dealt with over the phone.
Additional information
Can I bring someone to accompany me to the Appointment?
We are generally very happy for patients to bring with them a carer, relative or even a friend. This often helps, particularly when they know you well and it allows them to tell us any observations they would make about you, which can help us in undertaking our assessment. Ultimately this will lead us more quickly to make an accurate diagnosis and therefore help you more.
Also, having someone with you means they can prompt you to ask questions that you may have forgotten, and after the appointment they can help in reminding you what was discussed.
Occasionally we might ask for them to leave but this would be unusual.
If you require interpretation services please contact us in advance of you appointment and we will arrange this.
Chaperone Policy
We will always respect your privacy, dignity and your religious and cultural beliefs particularly when intimate examinations are advisable – these will only be carried out with your express agreement and you will be offered a chaperone to attend the examination if you so wish.
You may also request a chaperone when making the appointment or on arrival at the surgery (please let the receptionist know) or at any time during the consultation.
Giving Consent for Treatment
You have the right to accept or refuse treatment that is offered to you, and not to be given any physical examination or treatment unless you have given valid consent. If you do not have the capacity to do so, consent must be obtained from a person legally able to act on your behalf, or the treatment must be in your best interests.
Your valid consent (agreement to the course of action) is needed for the treatment that’s offered to you before any physical examinations or treatment can be given. If you haven’t given your consent, you can accept or refuse treatment that’s offered to you.
It’s important to be involved in decisions about your treatment and to be given information to help you choose the right treatment. When making treatment choices, you’ll often discuss the options with your doctor or another healthcare professional.
If you have a suspected infectious disease
Please inform reception if you suspect an infectious disease, as this will enable us to deal with it appropriately during your visit to protect you, other patients and staff.
Interpreter
If you require an interpreter to attend with you when you see your Doctor please notify the receptionist and this will be arranged.
Private Medical Examinations
Medical examinations for special purposes such as pre-employment, fitness to travel, elderly drivers, fitness to undertake sports etc, will require longer than a routine appointment.
These examinations do not form part of NHS Services, you will be charged for any such examination. Please check the fee chargeable when you require to arrange any such examination.
Protocol for Emergency Appointments
When patients call each morning asking for an urgent appointment, if it is deemed to be a medical emergency which cannot wait until the next routine slots, these patients should be allocated an appointment as follows:
- Book a telephone triage appointment. Each doctor and nurse practitioner has four, five-minute telephone triage appointments close to the beginning of their surgery. If the clinician calls the patient and decides they need to be seen that day, the clinician who has triaged the patient over the phone, should arrange to see that patient themselves at the end of their surgery.
- If the patient needs to be seen face to face that same day, please offer a Book on the Day Appointment with a clinician, ideally with their own doctor first, or with another clinician if their own doctor is not available. For example, if their own doctor is fully booked, please offer a book on the day appointment with a GP associate or nurse practitioner.
- Urgent children under two years of age should automatically be added to either a book on day slot or as an extra at the end as these children if URGENT will need to be seen.
- Once the Book on the Day and Telephone Triage slots are taken, please add any extras as telephone triage appointments to the end of the usual doctor’s list. A specific time cannot be offered for these telephone calls. Please tell patients they may be called at any time. Please mark urgent telephone triage with an alert on screen, notifying the doctor that they should prioritise the call.
- Telephone triage for GPs who are absent should be shared amongst all consulting clinicians (including GP Partners, Associates and Nurse Practioner) to enable equitable workloads. For example, every clinician gets allocated one extra telephone triage call before allocating a second extra telephone call to a particular clinician.
- The on-call doctor should not receive more urgent telephone triage appointments than any other clinician as they often have other urgent queries to deal with in addition to their own surgery.
- Receptionists should not add any patients as extra face to face appointments without speaking to the clinician concerned. All extra appointments should be assessed by a clinician through telephone triage and it will be the responsibility of that clinician to complete the consultation, either over the phone or bring down and see themselves if required. Therefore, there should be no “sit and wait” appointments.
- Patients should not be advised to call back in the afternoon or the next day, they should be given an appointment (pre-book routine or emergency book on the day), or telephone triaged if no appointments available. Please do not add anything to clinician’s list from 11:00 onwards to enable time for admin, prescriptions and home visits. From 11:00, all queries should be directed towards afternoon slots.
All clinicians and receptionists are advised not to fill up book on the day slots in advance, or add extras on for the following day. This applies to both face-to-face appointments and telephone consultations. Specialist appointments that are not filled by the evening before, can be opened up as more book on the day appointments eg diabetes, family planning and COPD appointments
Urgent and emergency care services
Which Doctor?
As a patient, you are registered with the practice, not an individual GP. You can make an appointment with any of the Doctors at the practice. As medical records are now computerised, all Doctors, at any site can access your details. If you prefer, you can make an appointment with a Doctor of your choice. You may need to wait longer to get an appointment with a specific Doctor of your choice, as they may be in high demand at the time.