We operate an appointment only system and patients may book appointments up to four weeks in advance.

We usually offer urgent new appointments within one weekday. The appointment offered will not necessarily be with your particular Doctor or Nurse of your choice, as this is dependent on availability. We recommend that follow up appointments for the same condition are with the same Doctor or Nurse that you have already seen.

To ensure that you see the most appropriate clinician, the Doctors have requested the Receptionists to ask for some information about the reason for your call. If you do not wish to explain to the Receptionist, please say that it is “personal” and they will record the reason as that. Please give an explanation whenever possible - all your information is treated confidentially.

If you think you need an appointment more urgently than we can routinely offer you, the Receptionist will arrange for one of the Doctors or Nurse Practitioners to speak to you directly so that we can find out more and assess how best to help you. This will usually involve us phoning you back within two hours.

Please do not ask to be seen urgently unless your need is truly urgent.

The Practice is pleased to provide patients with access to its Clinical System via a Secure Web Interface.

To use Patient Access you will need a Practice ID number and Access ID number which is obtained from the practice. You will also need a password which will be unique to you.

To access the system click on the link at the top of this page.

For more information click here.

We are happy to try to help you by speaking on the telephone. If you think you may need an appointment to be seen that day, please telephone as soon after 08.20 as possible.

For other advice and information, please telephone after 11.00. If the person you need to speak to is unavailable please leave a message. You will either be given a time to ring back when they should be available, or we will check what number we can call you on.

We will see you at home if we consider your medical condition requires it. Please call 01724 877744 before 10.00am if you think you may need a home visit.

At 10.00am we allocate time to speak to you so we can best assess the need for urgent contacts including home visits. One of the Doctors or Nurse Practitioners will then speak to you and decide on the best course of action.

Our receptionists are here to help you get the right service.

Please don’t be offended if they ask you what the problem is when you call to make an appointment.

The receptionist might suggest other professionals that could help you better such as:

• Mental health services
• Pharmacy
• Wellbeing service
• Sexual health
• Support groups

Over the coming months you will notice your receptionist begin to ask for a brief outline of your problem when you ring to book an appointment.

This is because we are introducing something called “Active Signposting”. It means we are training receptionists and clerical staff to help them help patients by identifying the most appropriate place for their care.

Through this specialist training, our practice team will be able to direct you to the most appropriate health Clinician for your needs first.

About Active Signposting

Receptionists will never offer clinical advice or triage; this new way of working is about offering you the choice to see more appropriate professionals in the practice team or even somewhere else. If they can deal with the problem directly, it will often be quicker and means you may not need to see the GP at all.

By working this way, it helps to free up time for GPs to care for patients with complex or serious health conditions that can only be managed by the GP. More importantly though, it means people are seen first by the Clinician that is best placed to manage their clinical problem.

The choice is always yours though and you will never be refused a GP appointment but we hope next time you contact your GP and speak with the receptionist you will see the value of seeing another health professional if they are able to help.

If you would like someone to explain this to you in person, a member of our practice team will be happy to help.

If you can't keep an appointment, please let us know. If you have received a text reminder about your appointment, there should be a link attached to allow you to cancel via the internet. If this is not a possibility, please contact us during our opening hours with as much notice as possible.

Alternatively, appointments can be cancelled outside working hours by phoning 01724 877744 (West Common Lane Surgery) and leaving a message.

If you miss appointments repeatedly without informing us, we may remove you from our practice register.

Over 1,000 appointments are wasted every year in this practice through patients not attending their appointments and not cancelling them. Please help us by cancelling an appointment as soon as you know you cannot come or no longer need it, so we can give the appointment to another patient.