Blood tests at the treatment room, if authorised by a GP, are by appointment only – contact the treatment room on 02837521403.
Appointments may be arranged by telephone or by calling at reception. Each doctor will have a limited number of pre-bookable appointments Tuesday – Friday which will be available to book in advance.
All other appointments can be booked on the day by telephoning the surgery from 8:30 am.
NB.There are no pre-bookable appointments on a Monday.
Patients may not always be able to see the doctor of their choice, but medically urgent cases will always be seen the same day by one of the doctors or our nurse practitioner in the Practice.
Telephone advice
There may be times when you feel it is necessary to speak to the doctor on the telephone. Obviously it is not satisfactory for the doctor to be interrupted while he/she is with a patient so you may be asked to leave your telephone number and some brief details, before 12.00 midday, with a receptionist and the doctor will return your call.
The telephone is very busy early in the day (8.30am – 10.00am) so please make all your non urgent requests outside of these times.
Treatment room nurses
The Treatment Room is staffed by nurses from the Southern Health and Social Care Trust. The nurses support the doctors by undertaking tests that have been requested by clinical staff (such as taking blood and urine samples) and have a range of other roles. It is open from 8.30 am to 1pm (last patient taken at 12.50pm) and from 3pm to 5.30pm (last patient taken at 5.20pm).
If you have been asked to attend the treatment room for a blood test, consider attending in the afternoon session when the wait time is usually shorter. However, if you think you might be getting a kidney blood test (known as a U+E), you need to attend in the morning session, as this type of tests needs to go fresh to the lab at lunchtime.
Avoid attending the treatment room for blood, urine or other specimen tests on Fridays afternoons after 3.30pm, as the last collection before the weekend goes to the lab around 4pm.
The treatment room nurses do not diagnose conditions – for that you should make an appointment with a doctor via reception.
Home visits
If you are too ill to attend the surgery please let us know before 11.00 am. A receptionist will interrupt the doctor in order to assess the urgency of the visit. Please note that the doctor is likely to be in a consultation with another patient and may not be able to talk freely.
House visits are only available for patients who are housebound because of illness or disability.
Please remember that several patients can be seen in the practice in the time that it takes to make one home visit. There are also better facilities for examining and treating patients at the Surgery.
Cancelling your appointment
If you are unable to attend an appointment with one of the doctors or nurses, please telephone and let us know.
Staff training afternoons
In common with other surgeries in the area, we are closed one Wednesday afternoon in the month for essential staff education and training. Please see our home page for dates.
Should you need a GP in an emergency during this training period please contact the GP on Call on 077 9580 3284.
