**For all appointment requests, please telephone 01224 562888**
(All incoming & outgoing telephone calls are recorded for training and quality monitoring purposes)
Please note we do not use of eConsult
All appointments with a GP or the Nurse Practitioner continue to be by telephone initially.
If your need is urgent, a member of our Health Care Team will call you back the same day.
For less urgent matters, you will be booked into our next routine telephone appointment slot. You will be contacted by a member of our Health Care Team by telephone on the day of your appointment. If there is disruption to our service due to Covid-19, or any other unforeseen circumstance, we will aim to contact you within 3 working days of this appointment time.
A video call may be set up should the clinician feel this is necessary.
For Video Calls - please click the link below:-
In keeping with Government guidelines we aim to allow access to a health professional within 48hrs. We guarantee to contact patients with urgent problems on the same day, if the patient considers this to be necessary.
Making an Appointment
Our telephone lines remain open continuously from 8am - 6pm, Monday - Friday (Tel 01224 562888).
Currently all consultations are by telephone initially. Please book well in advance for routine matters. If possible, try to avoid calling on Mondays regarding routine matters as this is the busiest day of the week for patients who contact us with acute illnesses.
The Receptionists will ask you for details of why you require an appointment in order to signpost to the most appropriate Health Professional. We appreciate that there will be occasions when you may not feel comfortable providing such information and we would respect your privacy in such instances. You may be directed to see your local Pharmacist in the first instance for minor ailments or offered a telephone consultation with our Nurse Practitioner or Minor Illness Nurse, both of whom can manage many minor illnesses and can prescribe the same medications as the Doctor. They will consult with a Doctor regarding your condition should this be felt necessary, which may result in a Doctor calling you, if required.
If you wish a telephone consultation with a specific Doctor you may need to wait longer for an appointment.
Due to an increase in demand, we have found it necessary to allocate 3 Doctors to work on triaging `on the day' contacts from patients. Contacts of this nature are for patients who are acutely unwell and who feel that they cannot wait for the next routine appointment. A Clinician will prioritise the urgency of such requests.
If you will not be available to answer a booked telephone consultation appointment, or no longer require the appointment, PLEASE telephone us in good time so that the appointment can be used for someone else. This helps us to reduce waiting times and improve our service to you.
One Problem per Telephone Consultation
To be fair to other patients and help our Clinicians run on time, we politely ask patients to discuss one issue only in a telephone consultation. You should not expect multiple problems to be assessed in one consultation unless those problems are all urgent or relate to the presenting acute condition.
This also helps focus your GP or Nurse Practitioner's attention on the problem most important to you. When many problems are presented at once, this increases the risk that we may miss important issues.
We appreciate your co-operation in this matter.
Every day GP Practices are seeing hundreds of patients all with different needs, requests and health backgrounds. New ways of working have been introduced and consultations are offered in a range of ways to best meet the individual needs of each patient depending on what they are seeking an appointment for, and to help practices to see as many patients as possible each day.
Please note that Hamilton Medical Group do not use eConsult