The demand on appointments has increased significantly and consequently the next "routine" appointment may not be for several days. To address this problem we have introduced same day access to a Duty Team.
This is how it works:
Please continue to ring your surgery to book a routine appointment for a consultation with your GP.
If you think that you need to be seen sooner than the next available appointment offered, you will be put on the Duty Team list, you will be asked by the receptionist what your symptoms are. This is not because they are being nosey, it helps the triage* nurse or doctor prioritise their calls.
The Duty Team consists of a Nurse Practitioner (Senior Triage Nurse) and a doctor who may be working from either Hook or Hartley Wintney surgery. All doctors from both Hook and Hartley Wintney undertake this duty in turn.
The senior triage nurse or the duty doctor will ring you to discuss your problem and decide with you when/where you should been seen. This may mean that they book you an appointment with your own GP at a later date or they may ask you to attend either Hook or Hartley Wintney Surgery on the same day and they will give you a time to do so.
Please only use this service when your problem cannot wait until the next routine appointment available and remember that it is likely that the doctor will only deal with the immediate problem.
*Triage is the process of determining the priority of patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition. The term comes from the French verb trier, meaning to separate, sift or select. Triage helps determine the order and priority of urgent treatment and is used by hospitals and GP surgeries when resources are insufficient for all to be treated immediately.