Appointments – Kington Medical Practice

The surgery operates a booked appointment system for all clinicians.

Do you have an urgent problem? You can be seen on the day by an on-call clinician in an emergency appointment.

Non-urgent problem? You can make a routine appointment with a clinician up to 4 weeks in advance. Appointments are bookable through reception desk, by telephone, in person or via or our online booking service.

Appointments are set at 10 minutes but if for some reason you need longer with a GP or nurse then the clinician can request this with reception.

In order for our receptionists to help you please be prepared to:

give some details of your problem
Tell us if your condition may be infectious e.g. a rash, this is so we can arrange for you to wait separately from other patients
Be on time for your appointment
Cancel unwanted appointments well in advance
Make a separate appointments for each person who needs to attend
Bring only 1 problem to each appointment

Please remember that you can see any doctor at the practice. If you do not mind which clinician you see we can usually give you an appointment sooner. You may have to wait longer if you want to see a specific doctor. This is because some of our doctors are part-time and do not have as many appointments.

If you have been waiting for more than 15 minutes to be seen, please report to reception. We aim to keep our patients informed of any time delays. The GP may have been called out on an emergency or dealing with an emergency.

Missed Appointments

Telephone Consultations

On occasions, you may wish to speak to a clinician about something that may not require an appointment. You can book a telephone consultation with a clinician either on the day (if available) or in advance. With all telephone consultations, you will be called back at some point during that day, but we are unable to give an exact time so when booking your telephone consultation please provide us with a contact number that you will be available on all day. This can be a mobile or work number.

Appointment ‘Booking In’ Rules

When you arrive at the surgery please book in by using the electronic booking in screen which is located on the wall , just right of the main reception desk. This is always useful as the main reception desk does get very busy with other more time consuming patient queries. If you need assistance in using the electronic booking in machine, please do not hesitate to ask a member of the reception team. We do appreciate that sometimes new technology is sometimes difficult but we do ask you to use the booking in screen where possible. It is important that you book in either with the touch screen or the main reception, if you do not book in, you will not be called for your appointment as we will not know you have arrived. If you are more than 10 minutes late for an appointment, you will be asked to re-book for another time.

Referrals and Hospital Results

If you have been referred by the doctor for further assessment, your referral will go to the medical secretary to be typed or there may be a form to be filled in and then sent. Urgent referrals are sent within 1 working day and routine referrals within 3 working days. Once your referral has been sent we do not have correspondence from the hospital until you have been seen. The consultant will then write a letter or report to be sent back to the referring doctor. Unfortunately we are not informed about hospital waiting times. If you have had tests carried out at the hospital that have been requested by your consultant and not your GP, the hospital will keep your results. They do not necessarily get sent to us at the surgery so please contact the department you attended to get these. Your hospital records are completely separate from your medical records kept at the surgery and do not get passed onto your GP.

Home Visits

Home visits take up a considerable amount of GP time, In the time it takes a clinician to see one patient at home, we can see four patients in the surgery, so we would appreciate it if you can come to the surgery when ever possible.

Visits are usually made after morning surgery, or early afternoon.

A GP may recommend a home visit when it makes clinical sense and is the best way of giving medical opinion, such as cases involving:

The terminally ill
The truly house-bound patient for whom travel to the practice would cause deterioration in their medical condition

A GP visit is not usual for:

Common symptoms of childhood such as colds, fevers, diarrhoea/vomiting, earache and headache
Common symptoms in adults such as coughs, sore throats, colds, diarrhoea/vomiting

It is also important to note that transport to and from the surgery is the responsibility of the patient or carer.

All home visit requests must be made before 10:30. Unfortunately when booking a home visit we cannot give you a time that the doctor will be visiting nor can we ask a specific doctor to visit you.