Appointments

We use a telephone triage approach to help make a clinical decision about whether a patient needs to be seen face to face.  Our clinical team will decide whether a patient needs to be seen based on the information that is provided. Our team of clinicians have undergone training in how to carry out remote consultations which means that this can be just as effective as a face to face consultation

For urgent problems please call the surgery between 08:30 and 10.30am and a member of the reception team will add you to the triage list.

For routine appointments please try and call after 10.30am

Please be aware that we experience high call volumes everyday. We operate a telephone queuing system to help manage the number of calls that we receive.

You will be offered the opportunity to choose the ‘Queue Buster’ option when the queue reaches ten callers. This is an automated system that calls you back when you reach number 1 in the queue. It is important to keep your phone close by if you use this option. The system will attempt to call you two times before you will lose your place in the queue. If you call the surgery before you are contacted by the automated system you will lose your place in the queue. 

A clinician may contact you via text, email or telephone once they have assessed your request. If you are contacted by phone it is very important that you keep the phone nearby and switched on. A member of our clinical team will attempt to contact you twice if a telephone consultation is needed. If the first attempt fails a second attempt will be made to contact you after a minimum time of twenty minutes. Please do not attempt to call the surgery as the clinician who has tried to contact you will be in the process of contacting another patient.  If both attempts fail then you will need to complete an econsult or contact the surgery the next day to go on the triage list. 

Nursing Appointments

If you need an appointment to see a member of our nursing team please call the surgery preferably after 13:30  and one of our reception team will be happy to book you in.

Minor Illness Nurse 

We face to face appointments with our minor illness nurse, which can be booked one day in advance. These are for acute infections such as chest infections, sore throats and urine infections

Annual Reviews 

We have been looking at ways to improve the way we make appointments for patients who have long term conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma and other conditions.

From April we shall be using a new method to book appointments for annual reviews for patients with long term conditions.  Patients will generally be recalled for their health review in their month of birth.  This may mean that you are recalled earlier or later than 12 months from your last review, so we apologise if the gap seems too long or too short.

We will send a text with a link for patients to self-book an appointment at the most convenient time for them.  The link remains live for only 48 hours so prompt action is recommended. If patients miss the link they can ring the surgery to book their appointment.  Patients who do not have a Smart phone will be sent a letter inviting them to ring the surgery to book their appointment.

This should be more convenient for patients and will also be kinder to the planet in reducing the number of letters to be printed and posted.

Physio

We have a First Contact Physio who visits the surgery once a week on a Thursday

NHS App

For information about the NHS app and Airmid please visit this website Managing your healthcare online – NHS West Sussex CCG

Further information about the NHS App is available here NHS Digital Support Centre (zendesk.com)

Online Services