Day to Day service Post- Pandemic

Dear Patients,

We wanted to provide you with an update and clarify how we are currently delivering our services and operating the building.

Appointments

You can request a telephone call or a face-to-face appointment, it is your choice. Reception staff will indicate if the reason your are asking for an appointment can be dealt over the phone. This is because it makes the appointments more efficient, but if you would prefer a face-to-face appointment you can have one.

The GPs have trained the reception team to ask certain questions to understand the urgency of the appointment and who might be the best clinician / health care professional to deal with your health concerns. This is because not everything needs to be seen and dealt with by a GP.

If you feel the reason for contacting us isn’t urgent and can wait 48-72 hours, please use the online access form on the home page. The form will ask you a series of questions and when you submit the form it comes to us immediately. The reception team will then allocate online requests to the most appropriate clinician / health care professional, like when you call the surgery. Then if the clinician decides they want to see you or call you, they will. If not, they will text / email you back with an answer or outcome. This is a really quick and useful way of communicating with us and not getting caught up in the 8am telephone call rush, which we understand is frustrating for patients.

Please remember that we have a patient list of nearly 10, 000 patients at Broomfield Park Medical Centre and the reason the phones are busy in the morning (sometimes until 10am!) is because a large proportion of patients want medical attention. It is not because the reception team are ignoring the phones! If 1% of our patient listed called us in the morning, that’s 100 people all calling at 8am to book an appointment!

Day to Day Service and Building Operations

We are operating our building and service as normal. If you still wish to wear a mask to the surgery and around the building this is your choice. Some clinicians may also wear a mask during your appointment.