Appointments
HOW TO BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
Routine booked appointments are for 10 minutes and can be booked by telephoning or calling in to the surgery. They may be made up to 5 days in advance.
An appointment with the doctor of your choice is normally available within five working days (unless he/she is on leave). A routine appointment with the first available doctor has a shorter waiting time. If your problem can be dealt with by telephone without seeing the doctor please tell the receptionist who may offer you a telephone appointment time. It may be that you do not need to see a doctor but instead need to see one of the other health care workers. If so, please ask the receptionist who will help you.
The practice nurse is available on Monday - Friday. If you need to see the nurse please make an appointment. As we have nurses with very varied skills and qualifications it is very helpful if you can give some idea of the type of help that you need. The reception staff will help you identify the different areas of expertise in order to ensure that you get the most appropriate appointment.
Please make a SEPARATE appointment for each person seeing the doctor.
EMERGENCY APPOINTMENTS
Please tell the receptionist if you have medical problems that require urgent attention, you will then be able to discuss matters with the duty doctor. Emergency appointments are not suitable for ongoing medical problems or repeat prescriptions. It is helpful for the receptionist to know the nature of your problem to enable those with the most serious problems to be dealt with as quickly as possible. Some matters such as severe chest pain or heavy bleeding can be very serious, in such a situation an ambulance should be called (telephone 999) before contacting the surgery.
Please note that if you do use an emergency appointment for a non-urgent problem, the doctor may not deal with it on that day and you may be asked to re-book a routine appointment for another time.
HOME VISITS
To request a home visit, please telephone us on 020 3049 4500.
Please try to make requests for home visits by 11:00 am. The receptionist may ask for details of the illness as well as your age, address and telephone number as it is important for the doctor to be given an idea of the urgency of the problem.
OUT OF HOURS
If you need to speak to a doctor when we are closed, please ring our doctor on-call service, South East London Doctors’ Co-operative on 020 8693 9066. South East London Doctors’ Co-operative is staffed by GPs who work in practices within Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham. You may be asked to attend the South East London Doctors’ Co-operative base at Dulwich Hospital or the doctor may give you advice or may visit you at home, if appropriate. Alternatively you can contact NHS Direct, a 24-hour nurse led advice line on 0845 46 47
EMERGENCIES AWAY FROM HOME
Should you need medical advice away from home, you are entitled to treatment, as a temporary resident, from a doctor in the area where you are staying.