Who to See
Patient s are free to see the clinician of their choice, please ask the receptionist upon booking for your preferred clinician’s availability. For urgent on the day bookings, we cannot guarantee your preferred choice of clinician will be available, however we will endeavour to book routine future bookings with your preferred choice of clinician.
Making an Appointment
Access to services at the surgery is by appointment only. There are a number of methods in which you can make an appointment at the surgery:
Please use PATCHS – if you are unable to use PATCHS please contact Reception during opening hours on 01484 654504
Make an appointment with the receptionist at the reception desk
Use the online booking facility CURRENTLY SUSPENDED
We operate an ‘on the day’ appointment system whereby a limited number of appointment slots are reserved for on the day booking. These appointments are reserved for conditions of an urgent nature only.
To arrange an urgent ‘on the day’ appointment we request that patients do this via PATCHS stating there urgent care needs and this will be reviewed by a clinician. Alternatively telephone the surgery when the lines open at 08:00 or call into the surgery when the doors open at 08:00 for a morning appointment.
The doctors have asked the reception staff to take a brief description of the nature of illness so that an appropriate appointment can be allocated.
Alternatively, we are also able to offer appointments at The HUB and extended access clinics. This service is based at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and other local surgeries. This includes limited appointments in the evening and weekends. This appointment availability bridges the gap between urgent and routine appointments and assists GP Practices across the area to meet demand.
Routine appointments with all our clinicians can usually be booked up to 4 weeks in advance. If your problem is not of an urgent nature, please request a routine appointment.
To arrange a routine appointment you can telephone the reception team, use PATCHS or call into the surgery. Your clinician may ask you to make a further routine appointment upon leaving.
Appointments with GPs are booked at 10 minute intervals (GP Registrar and Advanced Nurse Practitioner appointments may be at longer intervals). Appointments with the nursing team vary depending on what the appointment is for.
We request that patients discuss one issue during their consultation to ensure that adequate time and attention can be given to listening to you, assessing you and diagnosing your problem. You may be advised to make another appointment to discuss any additional problems you have so please discuss your most important problem.
Please note that clinicians only see one patient per consultation. Please make a separate appointment for each person needing to be seen.
During any consultation at the surgery you may request a trained, DBS checked chaperone to accompany you. On occasions, the clinician may request that a chaperone is present. A chaperone is witness to the consultation and will be required to have view of the patient during any examination taking place. A chaperone can also be requested simply to provide support such as holding a hand during an examination if the patient feels anxious.
Details of the chaperone will be documented in your medical record. Our chaperones include all clinicians and some members of the admin team. All are trained in the role of a chaperone. We cannot guarantee who will be the allocated chaperone as this will depend on staff availability at the time of your appointment.
If you are housebound due to illness or disability we offer a home visit service. We aim to visit usually between 12:00 – 14:00 and therefore ask that all home visit requests are made as early as possible but ideally by 11:00 am. If a home visit request is made after 11:00 am, the doctor on-call will be notified and will decide whether or not the visit will take place on the same day. It may be that the doctor will visit that evening or book for the visit to take place the following day.
All home visits are at the discretion of the doctors.
Upon requesting a home visit, the receptionist will ask for details of the problem to ensure that the doctor can prioritise the home visit and to ensure you receive the most appropriate level of care at the most appropriate time.
You may be visited by a GP, GP Registrar or Advanced Practitioner. Whilst we try to accommodate patient preference of clinician, this may not always be possible.
Please be aware that transport difficulties to the surgery are not considered a valid reason for requesting a home visit. If you are facing challenges, we encourage you to explore alternative transportation options or contact us for assistance.
If you no longer require an appointment please cancel it.
We ask that patients give at least 30 minutes notice of a cancellation to ensure we can offer the appointment slot to someone else.
You will receive an appointment reminder text message and this allows you the facility of cancelling your appointment by text back. This is a simple and easy process and ensures that your appointment can be given to someone else. If you have access to online booking services, you can cancel your appointment online. Alternatively please telephone the reception team or call in to the surgery.
Cancelling an appointment with less than 30 minutes notice will be classified as a ‘did not attend’ (DNA) on your record (see Non-Attendance section of the website for our DNA policy)
We have a texting service which allows you to receive confirmation and reminders about your appointments. The service also allows you to cancel your appointment by text back, ensuring that your appointment can be given to someone else.
To have this service you will need to register by completing a consent form.
Please remember to update your contact details with us when you change address, telephone numbers and email address.
We ask that patients arrive shortly before the appointment time. If you anticipate that you will arrive late for your appointment please try to contact the surgery in advance, to let us know. We may still be able to see you on the same day, if we are pre-warned of your anticipated late arrival.
If you arrive more than 10 minutes late for an appointment and have not given us prior warning of this, please inform the receptionist upon your arrival as the self-check in screen will prevent the self-check in functionality. Depending on the type of appointment that you have booked, we may ask that you re-book your appointment. If you have an urgent appointment or deem your condition to be of a urgent nature, we will request a decision from the clinician as to whether you can still be seen on the same day. This may be at a different time and we may ask that you wait or come back later. The decision of the clinician is final and the receptionist cannot change this decision once it has been made.
