Please help us to help you and our other patients. Our doctors can see several patients in the surgery in the time it takes to do a single home visit. For this reason, we ask our patients to come to the surgery where required, and we also offer video and telephone consultations where appropriate.

However, we can visit you at home if you are:

• Terminally ill
• Housebound
• Severely ill and cannot be mobilised

Please request visits before 10:00 whenever possible as this allows the GP to plan their day accordingly. Late requests often lead to disruption of the appointment system and excessive waiting times for others.

We want to see patients as quickly as possible, and the best way is often to encourage them to come to the surgery, because your GP will have access to all your medical records, including those held on computer. There are also better facilities for examining and treating patients at the surgery.

Babies and small children should be brought to the surgery where we will do our best to see them promptly. If our reception staff are made aware that your child is particularly unwell, they will do everything they can to ensure that you are not kept waiting unnecessarily to see the GP.

Transport/social problems – We cannot undertake home visits for reasons of convenience or lack of transport. We will be happy to provide you with details of local taxi firms. From experience, we find that relatives, neighbours or friends are often willing to help out.

Our responsibility to you is to resolve the medical problem you have; your responsibility is to take all the reasonable steps that you can, to enable us to do that.

A doctor/nurse will call you back on most occasions to assess your problem. This is to enable the GP to prioritise visits.

It may be that your problem can be dealt with by telephone advice, or that it would be more appropriate to send a nurse or indeed arrange a hospital attendance. It also prepares the GP to collect some information required as necessary for the visit.

The GP may ask you to come to the surgery, where you will be seen as soon as possible. We would like to stress that no patient in serious and definite need of a home visit will be refused.

In the past, GPs were able to routinely follow up home visits. Sadly, pressures of time and more patients needing attention means this is usually no longer possible.

Some problems such as severe chest pains or shortness of breath are medical emergencies and you will be advised to dial 999.