Home Visits

Home visits are at the discretion of the doctors. When the condition of the patient suggests that a home visit may be required please contact the surgery before 10:00 where possible, on telephone number 01862 892203.

Home visits are for people who are genuinely too ill to visit the surgery. A rash or a temperature does not prevent patients coming to the surgery and will not endanger others. In the time it takes a doctor to do a single house call, four patients can be seen in surgery, which is also well-staffed and better equipped.

The vast majority of problems - acute and chronic - are best seen at the surgery.

Our reception staff may ask for further information to enable the doctors to prioritise home visits. A doctor or nurse may phone you back as 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 arrange an ambulance or even arrange hospital attendance.

We can of course be contacted at any time in an emergency.

It is NOT a patient’s right to receive a house call. Although we try to help as much as possible, the NHS does not consider lack of transport alone an appropriate reason for a home visit.