Surgeries are by appointment only and patients are seen in the order of their appointment and not by their arrival time. The appointment is ten minutes per person.

If a patient requests an emergency appointment you may be asked by the receptionist the reason for the visit as it may be more appropriate to send you directly to the hospital emergency department. If you insist on seeing the doctor on the same day you may have to wait up to one hour. You must ring the surgery at 08:00. You may benefit from taking the next available appointment.

Your doctor will always try and find the best way of making you better. You will not always be given medicine, as there are other ways to treat you. Please do not expect a prescription on every visit. Your doctor can treat minor injuries and provide minor surgery.

You can now book appointments online. To use SystmOnline you will need a Practice ID number and Access ID number which is obtained from the practice, and, in conjunction with a password, will be unique to you.

The doctor is available for telephone consultations at the end of the afternoon surgery. You may ring the receptionist and leave a detailed message so that the doctor could read it and reply before you ring back.

Home visits can be requested by telephone, preferably before 10.00am. Visits are done after afternoon surgery. The receptionist will ask you about your illness to help the Doctor plan the priority and urgency of the visit. The doctor may phone you before the visit to assess the need of the visit, please leave your phone number with the receptionist. We understand there are circumstances that require a home visit; it is of great help if you make every effort to attend the surgery.

If you need specialist advice or treatment you may be referred to the hospital or otherwise engaged, normally a locum vocational trained GP is in attendance for surgery and emergencies.

You may be referred for further opinion from the hospital specialist. Should this be the case the doctors will share details of your past medical history with the doctors in the hospital to ensure you receive the best possible treatment.

The practice now provides Extended Hours Service. Please visit our surgery times page for more information.

Extended hours - Monday's- 18:30 - 20:15.

If you cannot attend your appointment, please contact the surgery to cancel, so the appointment can be given to another patient. If you are late for your appointment for any reason at all you may have to wait to see the doctor.

Dear Patients,

After many years of our clinicians listening and actioning more than one problem per appointment, we have now decided to take the firm step and implement a “One problem per consultation policy”.

We kindly ask that all patients try and stick to our ‘One Problem Per Consultation’ policy. The main reason for this request is for clinical safety.

Each appointment is only 10 minutes long. This is not a lot of time, even for just one problem, e.g., 1 minute to get to doctor’s room and sit down, 3 minutes to tell a history, 3-4 minutes to perform a targeted examination, 2 minutes to explain, advise and treat. There is no time left of the ten minutes to write up notes, fill out forms, dictate referrals or speak to other team members for advice.

Presenting with multiple problems means that there is an increased risk that mistakes will be made and things to be missed as the clinician may be inclined to rush, particularly if other patients are waiting. This can often mean further issues do not get the full attention they deserve.

One of our main purposes is to detect serious disease early. Presenting multiple different problems to the clinician, not all of which may be serious, increases the difficulty of this task – it is like finding the ‘needle in a haystack.’

Doctors/clinicians cannot see huge numbers of patients with multiple problems and continue to practice safely and effectively. A stressed & tired doctor/clinician will struggle to be a good and safe doctor/clinician.

GP/clinician appointments are a limited resource, and we would kindly ask that such a service be used with care and consideration.

Therefore, please do not be offended if the doctor advises you to rebook for your other problem(s). We are working in your best interests in order to keep you safe AND also considering the health and wellbeing of our staff to prevent ‘burnout’.

We would always encourage patients to book routine follow up appointments if needed and to refer to other appropriate service providers.

Thank you for understanding & your co-operation.

Birkby health centre