Appointment Booking System and Continuity of Care

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In order to continue delivering high quality healthcare service for our patients, we would like to make the best use of the time and skills of our well-established clinical team. We have considered many examples of improved access for patients across the NHS and have found that efficient appointment booking can make a big improvement to both the patient experience and our GP Practice sustainability.

Efficient appointment booking is designed to connect patients more directly with the most appropriate source of medical care as per NHS guidance.

Check out our appoinments section for more detailed information and guidance on when to book to see a GP and a list of services we provide without the need to see a clinician.

How to book an appointment

All the reception team here in Courtside Surgery undergo regular training to make our service better and improve our patient experience and have direct support from our clinical team.

Our reception team will ask simple questions to enable them to direct you to the most appropriate healthcare professional or service in our area; they do not make clinical decisions but are trained to confidently offer alternatives for symptoms that can be managed by a pharmacy, an optician, the minor injuries unit, community audiologist or social prescribing service, community midwives or district nurses.

Our reception team will

• Take some details of your presenting symptoms or request.
• Look to see the last clinician who saw you (if an ongoing problem) so that we can try to maintain continuity of care with the clinician who knows your problem best.
• Offer suggestions as to your options regarding specific symptoms or request.
• Book appropriate appointments with the clinician most suited to solve your problems; you can choose whether this is on the phone or at the surgery. The appointment may be same day (clinically urgent), within a week or at future date as per clinical indication. Sometimes we will advise a visit to A&E or to ringing an ambulance. If you request an urgent appointment, you must be able to attend the surgery on that day.
• Check if there is any outstanding issue, we might be able to help with during your contact with our team. For example, if you are coming to see a GP, we can arrange a blood pressure check or blood test on the same day.

Please consider

• ongoing problem will not be dealt with by a GP if you request an urgent appointment
• phone in the morning, if you are unwell so that we have time to deal with your request
• Arrive no more than 5 minutes before the appointment time to reduce congestion in the waiting room
• We would like to hear suggestions and feedback from you; our patient participation group regularly meets with our doctors to consider ways to improve the services that we are offering

Published: May 31, 2022