Urgent appointments at new health centre

THE White Horse Health Centre has a system in place to help patients who need to see a doctor urgently.
The health centre has a duty doctor who starts each day completely unbooked, ready to deal with every urgent problem that day. The doctor works with either two or three duty nurses, nurse practitioners and children’s nurse to see all the urgent patients.  Appointments are made with the most appropriate health professional who can help the patient the most quickly.
Debbie Riddiford, practice manager said, “We see every patient who is urgent for that day. Most problems do not need to be seen instantly and booking appointments reduces the amount of time patients have to wait, rather than have everyone turn up at once. It is not unusual for the duty team of doctors and nurses to see in excess of 150 patients who need to be seen urgently on any one day. If the patients all arrived at once it would be impossible to manage and patients may have to wait a very long time.
“If patients are limited by bus times or transport, please tell us and we will always be flexible as possible with timings of appointments. Patients are not always aware that the nurses can assess and treat them and provide them with a prescription.
“They can often be seen much more quickly by the nurses and do not always need to wait to see the doctor unless they particularly request to do so, or unless they have a complex problem.  If a patient sees the nurse and they then need to see the doctor, this will be arranged for them straight away or with the  minimum of waiting time possible.
“If a patient has a particular difficulty or requirement that they feel is not being met, we have a management team who are always available to assist, please just ask the receptionist to put you in touch with one of us.
“We are always looking at how we can improve our appointment system and welcome positive suggestions from patients about this.”