Appointments - Telephone number 028 9086 4455

The surgery offers a limited number of GP telephone slots daily.  GP Telephone slots can be booked from 08:30am.

Once all of the telephone slots have been allocated there will be no more availability until the following working day.

If the doctor feels you require examination, you will be invited to the surgery for a face to face appointment.

Emergency Appointments

 If you feel you have an urgent problem, you can phone the surgery and a doctor will return your call, to assess your needs.

Emergencies that arise outside these times will be given prompt attention by the receptionist and the doctor will be informed.

Home Visits

• Home Visits should be requested before 10.30am, when possible, (Monday – Friday) – on 02890864455. Emergency calls outside this time will be dealt with as soon as possible.

• Home visits are for people who are genuinely house bound or are too ill to attend the practice.

• A doctor will telephone you if a home visit is requested, to assess your medical condition and decide how urgent a visit is needed. Please bear in mind the doctor may ask you to attend the surgery or refer you on to other services if they feel it is appropriate.

• Home visits are normally carried out after the morning surgeries have finished. Non-urgent visits may be deferred until another day.

• Please try to attend the practice, if possible, as it is estimated that the GPs can see at least five patients in surgery in the same amount of time that it takes to undertake a single home visit. If can be difficult for the doctors to make a full assessment without the specialist diagnostic equipment which is only available at the practice.

Requests for Home when we are closed – please contact Dalriada Urgent Care on 02825663500.

If you medical condition is urgent, i.e. chest pain, suspected stroke etc. please dial 999.

Your co-operation in this matter is greatly appreciated.

Appointments - Telephone number 028 9086 4455

The surgery offers a limited number of GP telephone slots daily.  GP Telephone slots can be booked from 08:30am.

Once all of the telephone slots have been allocated there will be no more availability until the following working day.

If the doctor feels you require examination, you will be invited to the surgery for a face to face appointment.

Emergency Appointments

 If you feel you have an urgent problem, you can phone the surgery and a doctor will return your call, to assess your needs.

Emergencies that arise outside these times will be given prompt attention by the receptionist and the doctor will be informed.

Did Not Attend (DNA) Policy

DNA’s have an enormous impact on the services we provide within the practice.  On average we have approximately 120 – 170 missed appointments each month with the GPs, practice nurses and Treatment room.  To place it in practical terms this is full time GP or nurse whose time is wasted by patients failing to attend their pre- arranged booked appointments.

As a practice we would like to reduce our rate of DNAs, which will:

1. Increase the availability of appointments for all patients
2. Reduce the pressure placed on the GPs, Nurses, Administration staff & services offered by the practice
3. Reduce the current waste of resources.

We do appreciate that everyone forgets an appointment on the odd occasion.  However repeated offences are unacceptable.  On a monthly basis we will identify patient who have DNA’d more than one appointment in the previous six months.  We will informally write to these patients outlining the ways in which an appointment can be cancelled.  This will be monitored and repeated DNA’s will result in a formal letter from us outlining any further action the practice may take.  Further episodes will result in a meeting with the practice manager & GP or possibly result in a patient being removed from the practice list.

What can you do to help?

Please notify the surgery if you cannot attend an appointment giving as much notice as possible.  Cancellations can be made via the following systems:

1.  In person -  via reception

2.  Telephone   -  by contacting the practice via the main telephone number:  028 90 864455

3.  Website -  cancellations may be made up to 24 hours in advance via the website.

Thank you for your support and co-operation in this matter.

September 2015 - DNAs remain a problem within the practice.  We appreciate that it will take time to fully educate a minority of the Practice population on the importance of cancelling an appointment and the impact this has on both the Practice and other patients wishing to book an appointment. The Practice is implementing a number of changes to try and combat its high levels of DNAs.  These are as follows:

Clinic Letters - it was common practice for the Practice to pre-arrange appointments for patients in certain clinical areas, such as, Cervical Screening, Diabetes etc. Over the coming weeks we will phase out sending prearranged appointments and place the onus on the pateint to ring and arrange a appointment with the correct health care professional/clinic.

On-line appointments - this will enable you to make appointments 24hr day/7 days per week via a secure network.  This system will provide confirmation of your appointment to a registered email address.  We are currently undertaking training for this system and preparing our protocols/procedures for possible implementation in December 2015.

The DNA policy was introduced at the start of 2014.  The practice will monitor DNA rates on a monthly basis. Ongoing rates are as follows: