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Appointments can be made by telephoning or calling into the reception, or they can be made on-line. Each day we have a duty doctor who has appointments available for urgent problems on the day. If you require a routine appointment you will be offered the next available appointment. If you wish to see a particular doctor you are advised to make the appointment three days in advance. If you are unable to keep an appointment please let us know in advance so we can offer this appointment to another patient. 

All the doctors and nurses work to appointments.

Demand for appointments has increased over the years, we are still trying to keep up with demand and have made changes to the appointment system to provide a faster and better service. There are 4 types of appointment. 

Book on the day appointments are available by ringing 0151 652 1688 or 0151 651 4995 each morning from 8.30am. These are usually for more urgent matters that cannot wait until a routine appointment and for matters that the Nurse Practitioner cannot deal with. We cannot guarantee that you will be able to see the doctor of your choice, although we will try to accommodate your request. 

Routine appointments are limited. These are for non-urgent matters and for patients who prefer to have continuity by seeing the doctor who has been looking after an on-going problem. Usually these can be pre-booked up to 2 weeks in advance if available. However, due to current circumstances this is open to change.  

Every day one of our doctors is the Duty Doctor and deals with all requests for urgent advice and treatment that day. If all the 'Book on the Day' appointments have been taken, the duty Doctor deals with anyone who feels unable to wait until another day.

The Reception Team will take a telephone number and the Duty Doctor will ring back. The doctor has the ability to offer an appointment if necessary or give telephone advice. 

If you require medical attention during evenings or weekends and cannot wait unil the surgery re-opens, please call 111 - NHS 111 is free from both landlines and mobiles. 

If appropriate a GP will offer you the opportunity for a chaperone to be present or you can request this service yourself.

If you require an interpreter to attend with you when you see your Doctor please notify the receptionist and she will arrange this for you.

• If you decide that your appointment is no longer needed, please ring up and cancel so that someone else can have the appointment instead.
• Does more than one family member need to see the doctor? If so, please make a separate appointment for each person.
• If you have several different problems to discuss, please make a longer appointment or separate appointments. Your doctor has only 10 minutes for each routine consultation.
• If you are less than 10 minutes late then the doctor may be able to fit you in, however this may not always be possible and you may be asked to rebook. If you are more than 10 minutes late then you will be asked to rebook.

Patients who are too ill to attend the surgery may request home visits. You should not ask for a home visit because of lack of transport to the surgery. If you require a home visit please ring the surgery before 10.00am if possible so the doctors can plan their visits. Most visits will be done following morning surgery, around lunchtime. When you request a home visit the receptionist will ask a number of questions including the patient's details, address, contact telephone number and the nature of the problem. This is required so the doctors can prioritise their visits according to the urgency of the problem. 

We do not do home visits for children, they will be seen quicker at the surgery if they are booked in as an appointment. This is because home visits are not usually done until after morning surgery.

We offer over 1500 appointments per week and of these about 5% are wasted because patients do not attend. 

It is important that you inform the reception staff if you are unable to attend your appointment, this will allow that appointment to be offered to another patient. If you fail to notify the Practice that you are unable to attend, you will be sent a letter informing you that you have defaulted from your appointment. Persistent defaulters maybe removed from the list.

You can also complete our appointment cancellation notification request form. This can only be used if your appointment has been arranged for more than 24 hours in advance. (excluding weekends and public holidays). You can also text to cancel your appointment.

We have a texting service which allows you to receive confirmation and reminders about your appointments.

To have this service you will need to register by completing a consent form.

Please remember to update your contact details with us when you change address, telephone numbers and email address.

The practice is a training practice for both medical students and GPs. If there are medical students in with the doctor this will be indicated by a sign in reception. You have the right to ask the student to leave the room, but we would hope that you would consider helping to train the doctors of the future.