What we do when you contact us
When you contact us, our practitioners assess how urgent your needs are.
Urgent needs: if your need is clinically urgent, we will contact you and assess your needs on the same day, by a telephone or face-to-face appointment. If you contact us in the afternoon, we may contact you on the following day, but only if we decide that it is appropriate to wait.
Non-urgent needs: if we decide that your need is not urgent, but requires a telephone or face-to-face appointment, we will schedule this within two weeks.
Where appropriate, we will signpost you to community pharmacy and / or other local services.
- If you cannot contact us, or when your GP practice is closed
- Life-threatening emergency or serious injury: call 999 or go to your nearest Emergency Department (A&E)
- Other injury or urgent need for treatment: go to your nearest Urgent Treatment Centre
- If you are unwell and need medical help: visit NHS 111 online or call 111
- For expert advice and medicines: visit your local pharmacy
- Mental health emergency: visit NHS 111 online
What NHS 111 cannot do
- Issue fit notes. You need to contact the surgery for these
- Make or cancel appointments for you in other parts of the NHS
Non-urgent advice: Other ways to contact NHS 111
• If you need help in other languages, call 111 and ask for an interpreter or
• For BSL use signvideo.co.uk/nhs111
Phoning the Surgery
Ringing the surgery is one of the most popular ways to make an appointment, however at peak times the telephone lines can be very busy. The below graph shows the times when the surgery’s telephone lines are usually most busy, and you may experience longer waiting times.
If your need is non-urgent, please consider ringing at another time of the day, or you may wish to use eConsult to get in touch. You can do this here.
Do not use eConsult if your medical problem is urgent. Call the practice or visit www.111.nhs.uk. If you or someone else is seriously ill, and their life is in danger, call 999.
Best times to call the surgery
You can see the busiest times of day on the telephone lines here. Try calling at the green times of day, if your need is not urgent.
The surgery is also usually busier at the start of the week; you may prefer to call later in the week instead.
NHS App
Did you know, you can also book appointments online, via the official NHS App.
The NHS App is a simple and secure way to access a range of NHS services on your smartphone. You can use the NHS App to:
- Order your repeat prescriptions
- Book appointments (telephone and face-to-face)
- Get health advice
- View your health record securely
- View your NHS COVID Pass for travel abroad
- Register your organ donation decision
- Access health services on behalf of someone you care for
- View and manage your care plans
You can access the NHS App by searching for ‘NHS App’ on the App Store or Play Store, or
you can download it via our online services page.