This charter sets out information about how we provide care at BIRKBY HEALTH CENTRE and how we hope to work together with you.

Consultations

The Practice runs an appointment system for all consultations. Please ask for more than one appointment if you want more than one patient to be seen by the doctor/nurse/pharmacist. Appointments are generally booked at 10 minute intervals; if you feel you may need a longer appointment because of complex problems please speak to a receptionist to book a double appointment. This makes the system fairer for everyone because other patients do not have an unreasonable wait as a consequence of the GP overrunning.

For same day sit and wait appointments, please call at 8:00am, if the receptionist signposts you to another care provider e.g. accident and emergency, opticians, dentists, local pharmacy etc. Please take the advice on board.  The receptionist will ask you for a short description of your problem to signpost you to the most appropriate healthcare professional i.e. GP, nurse, health care assistant or in house pharmacist.

If the doctor has to deal with an emergency, your appointment may be delayed. If this happens you will be offered the opportunity of either waiting or re-booking.

Cancelling Appointments

If you make an appointment to see a GP /nurse/pharmacist and then find you are unable to attend, please ring the surgery, if possible, you should ring at least 24 hours before, so that we can make the appointment available to another patient. Patients who fail to attend for three booked appointments within a six month period without cancelling may be asked to register with another practice as this is unfair to other patients.

Late Attendance

Patients who attend too late for an appointment may be asked to either wait until the end of the surgery or make a further appointment for another day, depending on the demands of the clinic of that particular day.

Repeat Prescriptions

Prescriptions can take up to 48 hours to process. We always endeavour to have them available sooner.

Continuity of Care

The Practice endeavours to offer its patients good, safe and the most appropriate medical service and care at all times. There may be time when you see a different doctor but this does not alter the care that you will be provided.

Telephone Calls

To contact the surgery please telephone 01484 519911. For on the day sit and wait appointments please call at 08:00am. For test results and queries if possible please phone between 10:30am-12:30pm. Please be advised that there may be times when the practice has not received your blood test results from pathology or the results have not been filed yet. The practice is now moving to phone call recording for training and monitoring purposes.

Change of Personal Details

If we need to contact you it is important that we have your correct details if you change your personal details please come to the surgery and complete a change of details form.

Opening Hours and Emergency Out of Hours Service

The Practice is open from-

08:00am-18:30-MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY AND FRIDAY

EVERY THIRD TUESDAY OF THE MONTH THE PRACTICE IS CLOSED FOR PRACTICE PROTECTED TIME

FOR ON THE DAY SIT AND WAIT APPOINTMENTS PLEASE RING AT 8AM, FOR HOME VISITS (IF YOU ARE NOT ABLE BODIED) RING AT 10AM.

Expected Behaviour

We aim to offer safe, practical and evidenced based medical services and care to our patients at all times and we aim that this is done by our staff with compassion and politeness. We hope that In return our patients will treat our staff in the same way with consideration and politeness. Should any patient use abusive language this includes verbal aggression or threatening behaviour towards any member of the Practice, then we reserve the right to remove that patient from the list with immediate effect as per the NHS zero tolerance policy. If you are removed from the practice, and you have any dependents i.e. children under the age of 18, as a family practice we would expect the dependents to change practices with you.