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 and will delay patients with booked appointments entering the premises.
All patients entering the premises are asked to wear a facemask 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 4 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 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. Spirometry will no longer be undertaken within the surgery itself but we have a community service to whom we can refer for this.
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 can be via telephone or face to face. 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.
We would ask that patients do not attend more than 5 minutes before their appointment time to avoid occupying waiting room space unnecessarily.
All patients entering the surgery will be asked to confirm they do not have symptoms that could be Covid19.
Patients exhibiting Covid symptoms MUST NOT enter the surgery.
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