Appointments

Patients who are requesting an appointment will need to telephone the surgery from 8:30am. The Friary Surgery now operates a triage system so all patients are asked to telephone the surgery and leave their details and an up to date telephone number that a clinician can contact you on. There will be no appointment requests taken at the reception desk.

The reception desk will not be open until 9am, however, if you have a pre-arranged appointment before 9am please use the automated check-in system to alert the Practice Nurse or GP that you are here for your appointment.

As a result of government changes, patients are now registered with the practice rather than with an individual GP.

More specialised procedures, such as coil fitting and minor surgery will be booked in advance and organised by the practice. Patients will then be contacted by the practice to inform them of the date and time of the appointment.

An appropriate health care professional will always be available to provide telephone advice, or if a face-to-face appointment is required.

The GPs do not make or take telephone calls in the afternoons.

Appointments are for 10 minutes but some patients’ problems take longer than others. Please be patient if there is some delay.  If you feel you will need a longer appointment than usual please let the receptionist know and we will try to make provision for this.

Cancellations – it is essential that you telephone if you cannot keep your appointment. Even at short notice, we can usually allocate your appointment to someone else.

Home Visits

Home visits are carried out for housebound patients and those who cannot come to the surgery for medical reasons

Please do not ask the doctor to make a home visit if you are well enough to come to the surgery. In general most consultations are best carried out in the surgery and, in particular, visits for children should rarely be necessary.

If you request a home visit you should give a full description of the patients’ condition to the receptionist so that the doctor can judge if a home visit is necessary, and can assess its’ urgency.

Only the doctor can assess if a home visit is necessary.

All requests for home visits should be made by telephoning 028 3752 1500 before 10.30am.

Emergency visits only will be arranged after that time.

Test Results

Results of investigations e.g. blood tests; x-rays etc are available once they have been reported on by the doctor, by phoning between 2pm and 4pm

Note that the practice has a strict policy regarding confidentiality and data protection and we will only release test results to the person to whom they relate unless that person has given prior permission for the release of this data or they are not capable of understanding the results.

When you take your test you will be told how long it will be before the results are returned to the practice.

It is your responsibility to check your results and to make an appointment to discuss them with your doctor if your are advised to do so.

Telephone Advice

If you require telephone advice the receptionist will take your details and a contact number and a member of the clinical team (doctor or practice nurse) will endeavour to return your call within 24 hours.

If you require urgent telephone advice this must be stated and will be directed to the doctor who is on call for emergencies.

Please ensure that you can be contacted at the number you have provided as there are many requests for advice. We cannot repeatedly ring numbers which are engaged, on voicemail/answering machine, or not taking incoming calls.