APPOINTMENT SYSTEM CHANGES, ACCESS AND HEALTH AND SAFETY

The Avenue surgery has updated their appointment access for patients and would like to share this with you all.

As Covid has been removed by the WHO as a pandemic, NHS England have also advised surgeries to look at going back to pre covid measures where possible.

As a result, we have discussed as a team that members of staff and patients are NOT required to wear face masks or coverings any longer. However a clinician, member of staff or patient has a right to continue to wear a face covering should they choose to, in order for their own health and safety measures. We ask you to make your choice as you deem necessary with regard to this.

With regard to appointments, we are now offering three standard types of appointments to our patients. On the day urgent appointments which are for medical issues that cannot wait to be assessed for the following day and these can be accessed by calling the surgery on the day at 8am.

The second choice would be a pre booked appointment and this will be a choice between a face to face or a telephone / video call. The patient can call the surgery to book this or can book this via TPP online or Airmid. This allows flexibility for the patients who can discuss issues over the phone or via video call, if they don’t feel they need to be examined.

We also continue to offer eConsults via the website for non urgent medical issues. Please note that these are not for prescription requests, reports or private letters but for actual medical issues. These are usually dealt with by a clinician in no more than 48 hours.

Once the appointments for the day have been used up, or if you as a patient do not get an appointment to see someone in two weeks, you will be signposted to an alternative medical support system by reception which would be the Urgent Care Centre, NHS 111, the pharmacy for minor ailments or putting in an eConsult online.

Emails are no longer used for an consultation related queries and only used for prescription requests, sending in hospital or clinical information to be added to records or in response to a GP or Nurse request. Any email that asks for consultation advice will be returned with a note to ask to make an appointment with the GP or Nurse.

We hope that you will see a positive difference in the way our appointments and access work.