All patient contacts at Royal Primary Care are on an appointment basis.

We do not offer a walk in service and we do not assess acute minor injuries.

For information on Minor Injuries Units click here.

We do not offer or provide any form of dental care. We will not see or treat any form of dental or gum problem.

For information on how to find a dentist including how to find an emergency dentist click here.

Same Day Appointments

Our Same Day appointments are for patients who are unwell with new and worsening symptoms. Same Day appointments can only be booked by calling the surgery or visiting your local surgery's reception desk.

If you think you need a Same Day appointment, your request will be assessed by one of our call handlers or receptionists using an assessment tool built by our clinical team. If a Same Day appointment is required, you will be offered an appointment that day (for requests later in the afternoon, appointments will be offered for the following morning).

Other outcomes from our assessment tool may be:

• An appointment is required within 2 weeks
• A referral or signposting to another service such as a local pharmacy, physiotherapy or other appropriate services

Our 7 & 14 Day Pre-Bookable appointments are suitable for patients who have ongoing symptoms or lifelong illness and don't require a Same Day appointment.

These appointments can be offered as either a face to face consultation or a telephone consultation depending on your preference. Please note, if you are offered a telephone appointment, clinicians will only attempt to call you twice. If the call has been missed twice, you will not be offered a further telephone call for that day.

If you need to discuss more than one problem, please request a double appointment when booking to allow our clinical team more time to deal with multiple issues. We strive to deal with each medical problem to the highest standard and this proves very difficult if our clinicians are asked to deal with a number of problems in one appointment slot.

To book a pre-bookable appointment you can:

• Use Online Services, such as Airmid, SystmOnline or the NHS App. These are appointments that are reserved specifically for our patients with online access and cannot be booked through our reception tea
• Visit your local surgery to speak to one of our receptionists
• Phone the surgery. When calling the surgery for a pre-bookable appointment, you will be added to our call back waiting list where one of our call handlers will contact you within 24 hours to discuss arranging an appropriate appointment or referral. By using this system, we will be able to helppatients who need a Same Day appointment more efficiently and ease the telephone pressures at our busiest times. 

Our nursing team are highly trained Nurses and Health Care Assistants who look after all aspects of chronic disease management, cervical screening, HRT, menopause and sexual health advice, vaccinations and injections as well as undertaking blood samples and blood pressure checks, lung function tests, 24 hr BP monitoring and Cardiovascular Risk Screening and advice / Health MOT.

84 Day Pre-Bookable Appointments

These appointments are routine appointments with our Nursing team and are available to pre-book up to 84 days in advance. All appointments with our nursing team are face to face, unless explicated stated otherwise.

To book a routine appointment with one of our Nursing Team you can:

• Use Online Services, such as Airmid, SystmOnline or the NHS App. Smear tests, Diabetic foot checks and Flu vaccine appointments can be booked via online services, but for any other Nursing appointment you will need to use one of the other booking methods.
• Visit your local surgery to speak to one of our receptionists
• Phone the surgery. When calling the surgery to book a nursing appointment, you will be added to our call back waiting list where one of our call handlers will contact you within 24 hours to discuss arranging an appropriate appointment or referral. By using this system, we will be able to helppatients who need a Same Day appointment more efficiently and ease the telephone pressures at our busiest times. 

A GP will only visit you at home if they think that your medical condition requires a visit. A GP can also decide how urgently a visit is needed. You cannot insist that a GP visits you at home. All of our visit requests will be triaged by our duty clinician and dealt with according to clinical need. 

Home Visits are reserved for the following groups of patients:

• The terminally ill
• The genuinely housebound
• Patients who are severely ill in bed

Requesting a Home Visit

Wherever Possible, try and come into the surgery as facilities here are far better for examination and treatment.

Requests for visits must be made by 10:30. Please only request home visits if you are incapable of attending the surgery.

Our call handling team are trained to enquire about the nature of your visit request to help the clinicians to determine the urgency of the call. We would really encourage you to describe the symptoms when asked as this will ensure your problem is dealt with by the most appropriate clinician at the right time suitable for your issue.

The doctor may telephone prior to, or instead of, visiting.  In some situations the Doctor may arrange assessment by another member of the Primary Care team (Advanced Nurse Practitioner/District Nurse/Community Matron)

Visits requested later in the day that are for the genuinely housebound, but are not urgent, will not be seen that day.  Ring early if you wish for a routine call if you are housebound.

Please remember that several patients can be seen in the practice in the time that it takes to make one home visit. So please help us to help you and our other patients by visiting the surgery whenever possible.

The following ARE NOT valid reasons to perform a home visit:

Transport issues for the patient

It is not the GP practices’ responsibility to arrange transport, or to perform home visits because the patient has difficulty arranging transport. In these circumstances patients should seek transport help from relatives, friends, or taxi firms.

Childcare issues for a patient

If a patient has difficulty arranging for someone to care for their children whilst attending appointments, the patients are welcome to bring their children to the surgery. 

Poor mobility

Whilst it is understood that having poor mobility is inconvenient and unpleasant, GP surgeries are designed to cater for patients with restricted mobility. If patients are able to attend any other appointments (hairdresser, dentist, lunch out), then they must be expected to attend appointments in GP surgeries.

An unwell child

Sick children will always be seen as soon as possible if brought into the surgery; it is not appropriate to wait for a visit. We rarely visit children at home as a responsible adult should be available to bring them to the surgery.

If a parent believes that the child is too unwell to travel to surgery, and is a medical emergency then it would be advisable for them to seek help from the emergency services by calling 999.

Residents of Care Homes

Care home residents are no different to patients in their own homes. The need to visit should be based upon clinical need, not the availability of transport or staff to attend the surgery. It is the responsibility of care facilities to make transport available for residents so that they can get to medical and non-medical appointments. Routine visit requests for care homes can be requested however will be deferred until appropriate clinical resource available. 

Resident outside the Practice boundary

The Patient Choice Scheme will allow GP practices to register new patients who live outside the practice area, without any obligation to provide home visits or out of hours services when the patient is unable to attend their registered practice.

Requests made by another Health Care Professional.

Visit requests made by other health care professionals from other services for patients who are not housebound will not be undertaken.

All registered patients have the right to express a preference to receive services from a particular Doctor, either generally or in relation to any particular condition; such preferences will be recorded by the Practice.

The Practice will endeavor to comply with any reasonable preference, but need not do so if the preferred performer has reasonable grounds for refusing to provide services to the patient or if the performer does not routinely perform the services in question within the Practice.

This organisation is committed to providing a safe, comfortable environment where patients and staff can be confident that best practice is being followed at all times and the safety of everyone is of paramount importance.

All patients are entitled to have a chaperone present for any consultation, examination or procedure where they feel one is required. The chaperone may be a family member or friend. On occasions you may prefer a formal chaperone to be present i.e. a trained member of staff.

Wherever possible we would ask you to make this request at the time of booking your appointment so that arrangements can be made and your appointment is not delayed in any way. Where this is not possible, we will endeavour to provide a formal chaperone at the time of request. However, it may be necessary to re-schedule your appointment.

Your healthcare professional may also require a chaperone to be present for certain consultations in accordance with our Chaperone Policy.