Dr First - a new appointment system
In April 2013 the surgery began a new service that will help you to get the appointment you need, when you need it.
If you want advice about a health problem, you can have a telephone appointment and speak directly to your doctor by phone on the day that you call. You can use the telephone appointment service for urgent and non-urgent health problems.
This is how it works:
- Call us on the main surgery telephone number 01642 745350 and ask to make an appointment with your doctor.
- The receptionist will ask for your name and telephone number. If it is an emergency and you need to speak to the doctor urgently tell the receptionist straight away.
- The receptionist will ask you to say generally what your health problem is. You don’t have to tell the receptionist, but if you do, this will help the doctor to prioritise their calls based on clinical need.
- If you want to speak to a specific doctor, tell the receptionist and wherever possible they will try to arrange this.
- Your call will go straight through to a doctor if they are free. You can talk to the doctor about your health problem in the same way as if you were in the surgery.
- If the doctor thinks you need to come to the surgery to be seen they will make an appointment for you.
- If the doctor is busy when you call the surgery they will call you back as soon as they can. If you want them to call between certain times then tell us and we will try to arrange that.
We received a lot of feedback about our new appointment system from our patients in our 2013 survey. As a result of this feedback and instances where patients have reported a problem to us, we have developed a series of Frequently Asked Questions about the Dr First appointment system. We hope that these FAQs will answers any concerns patients may have about our appointment system. If you do experience any problems with this system we would invite you to speak to the Reception Manager.
