Appointments
Who do I see?
Routine appointments
You can make an appointment by telephone, calling in at reception or online. You can make an appointment with the health professional of your choice if available. The receptionist will guide you by asking you for details of the problem. You can also use the accuRX patient triage for routine admin queries (such as results and sick notes) and routine clinical queries via the admin and routine query selection and choose the admin action.
If you have several different problems to discuss, please ask for a double appointment. Your doctor only has 10 minutes allocated for each routine consultation and may be unable to deal with more than one problem in 1 slot.
Please be aware that appointments are issued on a first come first served basis. If you are visiting the practice to make an appointment, please note that you will be unable to do so until 8am. If you choose to queue we unfortunately cannot guarantee that you will be able to secure an appointment for that day as the team are answering calls at the same time.
Care Navigation
We will start to ask for a brief outline of your problem when you call to make an appointment at the practice. This isn’t because our reception staff are nosy but it’s a new approach that we call care navigation.
Through specialist training, our team can now offer more choice on who to see in the practice and help you get to the right health professional fast. Our receptionists never offer clinical advice or triage; this is about offering you the choice to see other specialists in our practice team if they have the expertise to deal with your problem; often quicker and without the need to see the GP each time.
For example, we often get calls that can be dealt with by a physiotherapist, the pharmacist, sometimes even the secretaries, that you may not be aware of if you haven’t visited the practice in a while.
By working this way, it helps us to free up time for GPs to care for our patients with complex or serious health conditions. More importantly though, it means you are seen by the clinician that is best placed to deal with your problem each time you visit us. The choice is up to you.
It would help the team to help you if you were to inform the receptionist why you need an appointment to see a GP.
Interpreting
At Richmond Medical Centre, we take into account all possible needs of our patients which includes providing an interpretation service for those who have a language barrier. The service we use is called LanguageLine Solutions UK.
LanguageLine Solutions provides interpreters for people whose first language is not English, to enable them to access services throughout South Yorkshire and beyond.
They provide interpreters to work within the health service but also for other organisations in the public and private sector.
When you book an appointment here at Richmond Medical Centre, please make staff aware that you will require an interpreter and we will take care of the rest.
Urgent Appointments
We save a number of appointments each day for patients with problems that are medically urgent and need dealing with today. The receptionist will ask for a general idea about what your health problem is so that we can make sure that you see the most suitable person. We do understand that there may be times when it is not comfortable to discuss your health with the reception staff, but we hope that you understand the reason behind this. If you feel strongly that you do not wish to tell the receptionist about your health problem, please make this clear and they will understand.
Some same-day appointments are offered by highly-trained nurse practitioners who can assess your problem, recommend treatment and, where necessary provide a prescription. If your problem is particularly complex, the nurse practitioner may call on the duty doctor for a second opinion. There is always a duty doctor available in case a second opinion is required.
Cancelling your appointment
If you have made an appointment and then decide it is no longer needed, please telephone us to cancel the appointment so someone else can have that appointment.
Alternatively you can use our online form below.
We effectively lose 600 appointments every year through people forgetting to cancel appointments.
Cancel your appointmentConsult with a Doctor online
You can now also contact a Doctor online using our online triage tool, click below to access.
Extended Access
We are able to offer Out of Hours appointments with a GP, Nurse, Health Care Assistant or an Advanced Nurse Practitioner. Please ask staff for information.
Home Visits
It is usually expected that patients attend the practice premises for its services. However, where a GP considers that the patient needs to be seen, and it is inappropriate for them to attend the practice premises, then we are required to provide those services at another place. This is usually and most likely to be at the patient’s home, or residential/ care home.
Patients sometimes think that it is their right to have a home visit if they ask for one, but it is always the GP’s decision whether to visit based upon the clinical need of the patient.
Here at Richmond Medical Centre we have a duty to use resources wisely, and GP time is one of the most expensive resources within our practice. A Doctor can see five patients in surgery in the time it takes to make one home visit and there are also better facilities on site for carrying out examinations and treatment within the surgery. Please be aware that the decision to make an out of practice visit is made at the discretion of the GP. Please do not ask a doctor to provide a home visit unless the patient is really too ill or infirm to visit the surgery.
If you are housebound (unable to leave the house at any time), residing in a residential/ care home or believe that your needs require you to receive a home visit, please ensure that you call the surgery before 10:30am to arrange. This will enable us to ensure that we can schedule for a doctor to see you the same day if eligible.
Except in the case of acute emergencies, all home visits should be requested before 10.30am. Please explain at the point of contacting the surgery what the problem is, as this will help the doctor upon visiting. Please be aware that home visits are made after the end of surgery.
Please ensure that all pets are secured in a separate room when a clinician is visiting you at home.
