Guide to our new appointments system

To book an appointment to see your GP or nurse please call the Medical Centre Reception team on 01225 789100. Online forms can still be sent in from our website for general admin and prescription requests, but these forms will no longer be used for appointment bookings.

You can request an appointment with your GP, advanced care practitioner, nurse practitioner, general practice nurse or our HCA by contacting the Reception Team. This can be done by telephone or face to face by attending the Practice. You can also still book GP appointments online if you have signed up for online access after you have registered as a patient with the Practice.

The previous system of having to make appointments online and using total digital triage was found to be difficult for some patients to use and for the Practice team to ensure patients were being booked in with the right clinician at the right time. We have continued to listen to patient feedback and engaged and discussed the options with colleagues and have identified that this change will give patients the option to book appointments in person, either on the phone or face to face at the Practice, or by using the online access booking.

The changes mean that you can now contact the reception team to request your appointment directly and you can still book in for an appointment with a GP online, at your convenience. Our new telephone system gives you the option to request a ‘call back’ so you do not have to wait in a long telephone queue when you are calling the Surgery to book an appointment.

You need to be a registered patient of the University Medical Centre to book appointments with us. If you are not currently a registered patient and would like to register with us, please visit our register with the surgery page.

Some problems can be managed by pharmacists who are paid by the NHS to provide a service called pharmacy first and it may be that your condition can be managed by a pharmacist.

The reception team can advise you if your request is appropriate for referral to the pharmacy first scheme, and please be aware that your contact details will need to be shared, along with the nature of your request. You will then be contacted by a member of the Pharmacy First team for assessment, advice and the next steps. Please contact us on 01225 789100 if you have concerns about this.

All test results can be viewed via the NHS app and we would encourage everyone to initially review their results via the app. If there are any questions regarding results after this, please submit a triage form to request a discussion with one of our team.

We value continuity of care and feels it is important to preserve. We will try to identify those for whom continuity is most important, but it would also be useful if you can specify who you would like to see when booking an appointment. This might not always be possible if your preferred clinician is not available within the time frame that your condition needs to be dealt with, but we will try to achieve this.