Please be prepared to accept a call from an unknown or withheld number
When calling to book an appointment you will be asked by the receptionist for a brief description of the problem. This is to ensure we schedule your appointment with the most appropriate clinician.
How do I make an appointment?
25% or more of our appointments are bookable online. Details of how to do this are on the website.
Our receptionists are able to assist you with making the right appointment with the appropriate team member (see below) or can guide you to the appropriate service to help with your problem e.g. community pharmacist, 111 (option 2), 111 first (for A&E) or to dial 999 in an emergency.
We ask that patients telephone for appointments where they cannot access online services or require an urgent same day appointment.
Please do not use the surgery email addresses for clinical consultations/queries or to request an appointment. Patients who do so will receive an SMS or email asking them to contact reception to make an appointment in the usual way.
Attending the surgery to make appointments may mean queuing outside due to the limited size of the waiting area and will delay patients with booked appointments entering the premises.
All patients entering the premises are expected to wear a facemask, maintain 1m social distancing and will be screened for Covid symptoms. Our receptionists are trained to prioritise answering the telephone as the ‘unseen patient’ is potentially the sickest.
Who will my appointment be with?
We have an experienced team of clinicians and allied health professionals at the surgery who are able to offer the advice, investigations, treatment and long-term disease management that our patients need.
Phlebotomists: We offer blood tests daily at the surgery. Appointment lengths remain increased to reduce patient numbers in the waiting room and we would like to continue to prioritise our patients with mobility or frailty issues. Blood tests can also be booked at a number of local clinics by calling 01245 516963 or online https://www.swiftqueue.co.uk/midessex.php.
Health Care Assistants (HCA): Our health care assistants provide a number of services including wound care, health checks and lifestyle advice, ECGs, B12 injections, flu vaccinations and are involved in long term disease monitoring (to name but a few of their skills).
Practice Nurses: The practice nurse team consists of members with both community and hospital nursing backgrounds who have developed skills in long term disease management including asthma, COPD and diabetes. They will continue to offer virtual, telephone and face to face reviews, working in collaboration with the GPs. In addition, they continue to provide our full range of other services including wound care, smears, immunisations, injections and contraception services.
Advanced Nurse Practitioners (ANP): Both our ANPs are experienced nurses with backgrounds as community matrons. They are able to manage minor illnesses in addition to acute presentations of long term diseases; patients with learning difficulties; dementia; and frailty. They are able to prescribe and make onward referral for investigations. We have expanded our ANP hours to provide appointments every day alongside our GPs.
Clinical Pharmacists: Through the Chelmsford City Health Primary Care Network, we employ a team of clinical pharmacists who are able to conduct medication reviews and review of long-term disease management e.g. asthma and diabetes. They assist with the monitoring of medications under ‘shared care’ with our hospital colleagues and are able to request blood tests and facilitate medication changes, including following hospital advice/discharge.
GP Registrars: We value training and development in primary care and as a long-standing training practice, we have GP registrars who are registered doctors that will be fully qualified GPs within 1-2 years.
GPs: There are 6 GP partners and 3 salaried GPs currently at the surgery, with a patient list that is pro-rata to our sessional hours. Where possible we ask that, for continuity of care, patients make appointments with their usual GP but there are urgent appointments available with our ANPs and GPs every day for matters that are clinically urgent and cannot wait.
How will my appointment happen?
We have made significant developments in the way in which we are now able to consult with our patients effectively, safely and conveniently. Despite the necessary changes to our services with the peaks of the pandemic, we were proud to achieve the targets set for our long-term disease reviews in the last year and even saw improvements in our diabetes monitoring targets. We intend to take the skills learnt in the last year and the new tools at our disposal to continue to care for our patients.
We have returned to all previous services that we offer including minor ops, joint injections and contraception services. We have now increased capacity for these and other services such as immunisations, injections and smears and will continue to monitor the impact this has upon the numbers in the waiting room and those needing to queue outside or wait in cars.
Long term disease reviews e.g. asthma, COPD and diabetes, are being done using a combination of telephone, SMS and face to face assessments when required by our nursing, pharmacist, ANP and GP teams.
Appointments with the ANP or GP will be via telephone so an assessment of the presenting problem can be made. A variety of medical problems, provision of advice and review of medications and long-term conditions can be done remotely using telephone/video/SMS/email resources.
As has happened throughout the last year, when a clinician needs to see a patient face to face, we will ask if you are happy to attend the surgery (after screening for Covid symptoms) either on the same day or at a future date. A decision to attend for a face to face appointment will be made in collaboration with our patients, where there is either a clinical need to be seen or when the alternative methods of consulting are not appropriate.
We would ask that patients do not attend more than 5 minutes before their appointment time to avoid occupying waiting room space unnecessarily. Please do not be offended if our reception staff request that you wait outside or in your car.
All patients entering the surgery will be asked to observe the ‘hands-face-space’ rules.
Patients exhibiting Covid symptoms MUST NOT enter the surgery. You and your household should isolate and the symptomatic household member must arrange a PCR test. A lateral flow test (LFT) that is kept at home and provides an immediate result is NOT the correct test for a patient with symptoms and we will insist that you are tested and any face to face assessment may be delayed until a result is available on your record.
Doctorlink
Doctorlink is an app that has been commissioned by Mid Essex CCG.
You can check symptoms with a clinically approved symptom checker
Get directed to the right treatment - whether a doctor, emergency care, a nurse or other
Download the app and register using the following link:
https://app.doctorlink.com/baddowvillagesurgery/register