Dr Sarah J Weidmann Coach House Surgery
Dr Jenny A King Bridgwater House
Dr Jeremy S Shindler 7 Printers Avenue
Dr Simon Hodes Watford
Dr Rachel Tudberry WD18 7QR
Dr Gowri Sankaran
Telephone: 01923 202600
Fax: 01923 202604
APPOINTMENT SYSTEM
1. Appointments with a Doctor:
The majority of appointments will be protected.
The majority of appointments are for 12 minutes for the morning appointments and 10 minutes for afternoon appointments. Exceptions are for GP Registrars and Foundation Year doctors, whose appointments will vary depending on their experience (ie up to 45 minutes for each appointment).
For routine consultations we will endeavour to offer patients an appointment within one working day of the request.
We will endeavour to offer appointments up to four weeks in advance, ie pre-bookable appointments.
When making up the “appointments book”, 60% of the appointments per morning session and per afternoon will be open for advanced booking. The times of these may be altered by the receptionists to suit the patients’ needs.
When we are short of Doctors on any given day, these pre-bookable appointments may be limited.
The protected appointments will be released for use at 8 am on the same day, which will be done automatically by the computer.
Each day, the duty doctor will have an additional six appointments that do not open until 8 am on that same day.
For medically urgent requests, we offer appointment(s) on the same day by way of a specially appointed “extras” surgery. These are put on to the system so that the morning extras open at 8 am and the afternoon extras open at 12 noon.
2. Appointments with a Practice Nurse:
For routine appointments we will endeavour to offer an appointment within five working days.
If we are asked, we will endeavour to book appointments up to 4 weeks in advance.
3. Telephone Access
Receptionists will be on duty to answer the telephone from 8 am to 6.30 pm
Our doctors are easily accessible to the patients, with receptionists leaving messages on the computer “task” system which are checked regularly so that they may return any phone calls as needed.
This plan indicates the minimum standards of access the practice will endeavour to meet but the detail may be varied according to our experience as the year progresses so as to maintain those standards.
4. On-line Access
Appointments to see a doctor can be booked on line. Patients need to register for a user name and password in order to do this. Unfortunately, due to the more complicated nature of the appointments system to see a nurse (for example, double or treble appointments required for certain procedures), we are currently unable to offer this system for nurse appointments.
Lisa O’Sullivan
Practice Manager
17.7.06
Reviewed July 2007
Reviewed January 2010
Reviewed December 2010
Reviewed January 2012
C:/My Documents/Vine House/nGMS//ES/Access DES 2006 to 7 – PB 0506