Appointments

Duty Doctor

Every day one doctor is designated "duty doctor" and is lightly booked for routine appointments, so that he or she is available for emergencies both in and outside the health centre. The system protects patient time with the other doctors.

Duty Nurse

Every day one nurse is designated "duty nurse" and is available for urgent phone advice and same day appointments. She is able to manage many minor problems completely, can generate prescriptions or can refer to the duty doctor. If you are in need of immediate attention, the duty nurse is likely to be your first contact.

Making an Appointment

First you need to contact the practice to get a pin number and then simply click on the link and follow the instructions.   

The system is confidential and secure. The link takes you from The Wilson Practice to EMIS, the software system we use to manage appointments. 

To make an appointment by telephone: 01420 84676

• Please be prepared for a receptionist to ask you some questions. It helps them to offer you the most appropriate appointment.
• The receptionist will endeavour to give  an appointment with your usual doctor.
• A proportion of our appointments are available to be booked up to four weeks in advance, the others are "book on the day".
• Monday is our busiest day and it would be helpful if routine telephone calls and requests for follow-up appointments could wait until later in the week.
• Please call for test results between 10.00am and 4pm.
• Please call for prescription enquiries between 10.00am and 12 noon.
• Please telephone and cancel an appointment if you are unable to keep it. We can offer it to someone else.
• Medically urgent cases will always be seen as soon as possible but it may not be with your usual doctor.
• Routine appointments are  10-minutes long. If you think your problem is very complicated, or if you have several things that you want to discuss with your doctor, let the receptionist know and she will book a longer appointment for you.
• If booking an appointment for a specific purpose, such as vaccination, a smear test or medical examination, please let us know, so that we can ensure the correct time slot and member of staff is booked.

If your doctor is fully booked, a telephone consultation will be offered with the practice sister. She will either advise you over the telephone or arrange an appointment with a doctor or the minor illness clinic. Please ensure that, if requested, you provide reception with a telephone number on which you can be contacted.

Waiting to see a doctor

Sitting in the waiting room, waiting your turn to see the doctor, is not most people’s idea of fun. It is both stressful and a waste of time, and the waiting room is not a particularly healthy or germ-free environment!

Perhaps surprisingly, one of the things the doctors least like and find most stressful is running behind in our appointment times and thus keeping our patients waiting; so not good for you, and not good for us.

Our booked appointments run at 10-minute intervals. On average this works out about right; if we allowed longer we would have to see fewer patients and so patients would encounter greater difficulty in booking routine appointments. If we had shorter times our consultations would be less adequate or be even more likely to overrun.

However 8 or 9 minutes with the doctor may not be sufficient for your needs on every occasion. We would suggest the following simple steps to try to help prevent us from running late.

1. If you have a problem that you think may be long or difficult please ask the receptionist to book you a double appointment; we welcome this.
2. Try to avoid bringing multiple problems to a single consultation. It is much more in your interests to have separate appointments for separate problems.
3. Even though we may run a little late, please try to be here on time for your appointment. One late consultation at the beginning of a 3 hour surgery will possibly make 17 people all have to wait an extra 10 minutes each!

Just occasionally, our doctors are called out on emergencies. This can create havoc to the smooth running of a surgery, but it is unavoidable. We apologise should this affect you but ask for your forbearance under these difficult circumstances.  Should there be a significant delay, our reception team will let patients know.

Telephone Advice

You can speak to our duty sister  (8.00am to 5.00pm) or duty doctor (10.00am to 6.30pm), about urgent problems. Simply call 01420 84676 and ask for the Duty Team; you may have to leave a number for either the doctor or nurse to call you back.

Our doctors and nurses are happy to contact you by telephone for matters that you feel do not require a face-to-face consultation. Contact reception to arrange this. Please indicate to the receptionist whether the request is for urgent advice or concerning a routine matter. You will of course, be asked on which number you can be contacted. Please ensure you are going to be able to take the call on that number. It is frustrating for you and the doctor/nurse to miss the call.

Home Visits

Most medical problems can be dealt with at the surgery, and patients are generally encouraged to attend the practice for a consultation with their doctor, if at all possible. However, we fully understand that some conditions or circumstances make surgery attendance impossible. In such cases we would ask that you phone the surgery before 10am. This enables the doctors to co-ordinate and plan the home visits that need to be made.

For emergency home visits please phone the surgery in the usual way; you will normally be put in touch with our duty nurse or duty doctor.

Test Results

If your doctor has requested tests (blood, urine, skin etc) the results will be sent back to the practice . We usually suggest that patients wait for 10 working days before calling for results, to ensure all details are back (some tests take longer than others). All results are reviewed by your own doctor (or another GP if they are away from the practice) and any comments about them are passed to the results team. You should ring for results later in the day (between 10am and 4pm please) and the results team will pass on the doctor's message. The results team will not be able to explain the significance of results - you will need to speak to the doctor or nurse who requested the tests originally if you require any additional information. Results of tests performed in hospital are sent to the hospital doctors who requested them. They are unlikely to be sent to the practice unless specifically requested.