Medical appointments – a local guide

Which appointment is the right one for me? Here at The Audlem Medical Practice we have a number of different types of appointment available and this can sometimes cause confusion.

The following is a brief explanation of the main types of appointment that we offer but if in doubt, please ask our receptionists who are here to help you.

Routine GP appointment – A 10 minute appointment bookable in advance with the doctor of your choice. Due to time limitations and to be fair to other patients waiting to be seen, the doctors are generally only able to deal with a single problem in each appointment.

Nurse Practitioner appointment – A 15 minute appointment with our Nurse Practitioner, Sister Julie Grindley. In general Julie is able to see the same variety of patients and problems as the GPs and is able to examine and prescribe as appropriate.

In all but the most exceptional circumstances, she will always have a GP available to advise her as required.

Nurse Chronic Disease Review appointment – When your annual review is due we will send you a letter to remind you to make a 15 minute (30minutes for patients with multiple problems) appointment with a member of our nursing team (Julie, Jayne or Anita).

Our nurses will perform all of the necessary reviews regarding any chronic conditions you may have and your medication and check that you remain well and on the appropriate treatment.

For many of these reviews we will inform you that you will require a blood and/or urine test beforehand so that our nurses can review your results as part of the check.

Nurse Treatment Room appointment – A 10-20 minute appointment with a member of our nursing team for dressing changes, injections, cervical smears, removing sutures, ear syringing and many other things.

Some appointments require preparatory treatments (for example applying olive oil drops to an ear blocked with wax for 4 weeks before syringing) or questionnaires to be completed (for example before travel vaccinations) so please let our receptionists know why you are booking the appointment, so they can ensure both your and our time is not wasted.

Triage Telephone appointments – Should you feel that your problem is an urgent one that cannot wait until the next available routine doctor/nurse practitioner slot then our receptionists will take your details and a clinician (doctor or nurse) will phone you back within 2 hours to discuss your problem and advise you appropriately (please make sure you are available to receive their call).

Where it is deemed medically necessary, the triage clinician will arrange for you to be seen urgently by a doctor or our nurse practitioner, usually on the same day.

As the duty doctor may be out on visits or busy with other patients we advise that you do not present to the surgery without an appointment, as this may lead to a delay in you being advised appropriately.

Routine GP Telephone appointments – In order to improve your access to our doctors and prevent unnecessary visits to the surgery, each GP now has telephone appointments around once a week which are bookable in advance.

Should you wish to discuss something, your chosen GP will call you within 20 minutes of the allotted time to discuss routine or ongoing problems or to follow up regarding your treatment.

Health Care Assistant appointments – We offer appointments with our Health Care Assistants Jane and Debbie on most days for blood tests and in addition Jane will also see patients requiring other investigations such as heart tracings (ECGs) or breathing tests (Spirometry), dressing changes, blood pressure checks and new patient registrations.

If you are unsure, please ask our receptionists who will be happy to advise you.

Health Visitor and District Nurses – We have a part time Health Visitor (supporting new mums, child health surveillance and support, baby clinics, child vaccinations) and a full District Nurse team (to support the care of housebound patients and their carers with acute, chronic or palliative care needs) based at the practice.

We hope you find this a useful guide and we welcome your comments and feedback about this or any other area of the practice.

All the above information is included on the Audlem Medical Practice page on Audlem Online – please click on the link below the photo.

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.