Due to increasing demand on Primary Care services and an ongoing national shortage of GPs we have implemented a home visit policy as of 1st November, 2016.
Home visits are reserved for the following groups of patients:
- Those patients who are terminally ill
- Those patients who are bed-bound
- Those patients who are severely ill and cannot be mobilised
Several patients can be seen in the practice in the time that it takes to make one home visit. Therefore, we are asking our patients to please help us and our other patients by visiting the surgery whenever possible.
We want to see patients as quickly as possible and the best way is to encourage you to come to the medical centre, as the GP will have access to all available medical records, including those held on computer. There are also better facilities for examining and treating patients at the surgery than at a patient’s home (e.g. lighting, chaperones, blood tests, ECG, etc.).
Babies and children should always be brought to the surgery where we will do our best to see them promptly. If the reception staff are made aware that your child is particularly unwell, they will do everything they can to see that you are not kept waiting unnecessarily to see the doctor.
We cannot undertake home visits for reasons of convenience, lack of transport, or simply because a patient is a resident in a care home, sheltered accommodation or nursing home. From experience, we are aware that relatives, friends or neighbours are often willing to help out. You may also wish to take a taxi or you may be eligible for our volunteer transport service. Our responsibility to you is to resolve the medical problem you have; your responsibility is to take all the reasonable steps you can to enable us to do that.
Please also note we are unable to undertake home visits to patients registered with us who are temporarily staying outside our practice area.
Please request visits before 10am whenever possible as this allows the doctor to plan their day accordingly. Late requests often lead to disruption of the appointment system and therefore excessive waiting times for others.
A doctor/nurse will call you back prior to any visit to assess your problem. This is to enable the healthcare professional to prioritise them according to clinical need.
It may be that your problem can be dealt with by telephone advice, or that it would be more appropriate to send a district nurse, or indeed arrange an ambulance to take you to hospital immediately. It also allows the doctor to collect any information required as necessary for the visit.
He or she will ask you to come to the surgery if you do not fit one of the categories above, where you will be seen as soon as possible.