Patient Responsibility

Whilst the practice will endeavour to provide you with the best service we can, given the resources available, we trust our patients will use these resources sensibly and responsibly.

If you make an appointment, or we make you an appointment with a third party (e.g. the hospital) at your request, we expect you to keep it or cancel it in good time. For example if the GP has referred you, you can contact the Referral Management System (RMS).

What happens when you Do Not Attend (DNA) your appointment at the Practice

The Practice have a strict policy to tackle the issue of appointments that are called ‘DNA’S’.  These are appointment slots that are pre-booked by patients and then that patient fails to attend, without letting the Practice know.   As I am sure you are aware, appointments are scarce within the whole of General Practice, as we are busier than we have ever been before.  This is the reason that sometimes it can be a wait for an appointment.  Therefore when we have a patient that does not attend, it is extremely frustrating for the Practice, as someone else could have been given that appointment.  We always ask that you let us know if you cannot make an appointment. We have lots of different ways that you can do this;

We expect you to travel to the surgery to see the doctor unless you are genuinely unable to (lack of transport is NOT a valid excuse). We expect you only to use out of hours services in emergencies. If your problem can wait, please contact us during normal surgery hours.

We expect that our patients will treat all our staff and other patients with respect at all times. Any physical or verbal abuse will not be tolerated in any way. The practice fully supports the NHS zero tolerance policy on these matters. The practice reserves the right to have any patient betraying our trust in these ways removed from our list, and they will be expected to find another GP Practice.