Opening Hours

Our surgeries are open Monday to Friday and our receptionists are available to answer your telephone queries and to make appointments during the following times.

Appointments

We do not offer an open access system.  We see patients by appointment.

You may book an appointment either in person or by telephone (Williton 635920 or Watchet 634365).  We are not able to offer appointments or advice via email. 

If you do not need to be seen the same day, please try to telephone either late morning or early afternoon when the lines are less busy. Please help us by not telephoning before 9.00 am or after 5.30 pm for routine appointments.

Who Will I be Able to See

You are registered with the practice and can see any doctor of your choice.  When booking an appointment the receptionist will offer you an appointment to suit your clinical need with a doctor or nurse.

Please consider seeing an alternative doctor if your usual doctor is not available.  Remember all doctors have access to your clinical records when they are consulting with you.   We have to ensure that we can offer you access to a doctor within 48 hours, but we cannot guarantee that this will be the doctor of your choice.

Same Day Appointments

We offer a number of appointments that are available on the day for people who become acutely ill and need to see a doctor that day.  Please ring first thing on a morning to obtain one of these slots.  Where possible you will be offered an appointment to suit your needs with the doctor of choice but this cannot be guaranteed. 

There will be a Duty Doctor on duty each day who will be available to any patient needing to be seen urgently where high demand means appointments are not available on a given day.

Booking Appointments in Advance

You can book appointments in advance with any of our doctors.  Appointments are available up till 7.00 pm most days.  Whilst we try to allow you to book a reasonable period ahead, up to 4 or 5 weeks, our system does not allow for booking appointments any further in advance.  We have found that if we let people book too far ahead then the number of patients who miss their appointment and do not turn up significantly increases, resulting in wasted appointments.   If you cannot wait until the next advance booking appointment, and are not agreeable to seeing another doctor, then you may be asked to ring on the day for a same day appointment when they become available.   

Follow-up Appointments

When you see the doctor there may be some cases when he or she wants to see you again to ensure that your condition is improving.  If that is the case the doctor will advise you when they want to see you again and ask you to book a follow-up appointment.  If the receptionist is unable to offer you an appointment within the designated timescale they will refer the matter back to the doctor.  

New Minor Ailments Appointments

Patients phoning with a minor ailment will be given an appointment to see the Minor Ailments Nurses on the same day.  The nurse may refer the matter to the Duty Doctor if they are unable to help directly for whatever reason. 

The local pharmacy at Williton also runs a free minor ailments service, if the pharmacist is unavailable or still feels you need to see a doctor, they will refer you to the surgery.

Telephone Consultations

If you feel that your reason for wanting to see a doctor or nurse could be dealt with by a telephone conversation rather than a face to face appointment, then please tell the receptionist so a telephone consultation can be arranged.  The doctor or nurse can always make arrangements to see you at the surgery later if they cannot help over the phone.

Test Results

You do not need to contact the surgery or make an appointment for your test results.  Once we receive the results, if there is anything abnormal or needing further action or investigation, we will contact you.  In future, to manage test results more efficiently, you will be contacted by a receptionist who will arrange a suitable telephone appointment with the doctor who requested the tests.  The doctor will then ring you to discuss the results and any further actions that may be required.

Home Visits

Home visit requests should be made to the surgery by 11.00 am each morning except in an emergency.  A doctor may then contact you to determine whether or not a visit is required.  Whilst we will try to meet request for preferred doctor we cannot guarantee this.  Home visits are only meant to be for people who, for a clinical reason, are not able to attend surgery; we regret that we are not able to provide home visits because people do not have transport available.

Our surgeries work on an appointments system.  Appointments are for one person only and we ask that you please make an additional appointment if more than one person is to be seen by a member of our team.

If you find that you are unable to keep an appointment please let us know so that it can be offered to someone else.  You can advise by using the online form.

EMERGENCY CONSULTATIONS

It is not always possible to plan when you may need an appointment. If you need to be seen the same day or urgently require medical attention or advice, telephone the surgery. Either a doctor or a specially trained nurse will then contact you to discuss your needs; they will either be able to deal with the problem then or arrange for you to see a doctor (or nurse) but this will be with the duty doctor rahter than the doctor of your choice. If the problem is an emergency, needing a doctor straight away, please make this completely clear to the receptionist.

Home Visits

If you feel unable to come to the surgery and think that the doctor may need to see you at home, please telephone the surgery Home Visit Line on 635921, between the hours of 8.30 am and 11.00 am, if possible.

In order for us to assess the urgency of the visit you will be asked to give brief details of your problem. A doctor or nurse will telephone you to determine whether a visit should take place or whether it would be possible for you to come into the surgery. Please remember that the doctor can often do more for you in the surgery than at home, so it is in your interest to attend the surgery if at all possible. Most ill children can quite safely be brought to the surgery.

Please only request home visits if absolutely necessary. Home visits are normally undertaken between midday and 4.30 pm, you should not expect the doctor to arrive immediately following the end of the morning surgery. Whilst we will try to assist with requests for a certain doctor, we cannot guarantee who the visiting doctor will be.  We regret that we are unable to provide home visits because patients do not have transport.

Telephone Advice

We are happy to provide telephone advice whenever possible.  It may not always be necessary for you to make an appointment to see the doctor or nurse, quite often a telephone conversation is sufficient for patient needs.

If you need to speak to a doctor or nurse on the telephone, please try to telephone (Williton 632701) either between 8.30 am and 9.00 am or between 11.30 am and 12 noon, when the clinician is more likely to be available or book a telephone consultation with the clinician. We try not to interrupt consultations except in an emergency.

If you are unable to telephone during these times, please leave a message with the receptionist and we will arrange for the doctor or nurse to telephone you back when they are available.

Evening & Saturday Appointments

The surgery routinely offers pre booked appointments up until 7.00 pm each evening at either Williton or Watchet surgeries for those patients who have difficulty in attending the surgery during normal opening hours.  In addition we can also offer appointments on a Saturday morning upon request from 8.30 am.

The surgery is not officially open during these additional hours.  We are only able to see patients who have arranged for a pre booked appointment either between 6.30 pm and 7.00 pm on a weeknight or from 8.30 am on a Saturday morning. 

We are not able to offer our usual range of services during this time and if you are taken ill outside of our routine working hours you should contact the out of hours service as we are not able to offer any emergency or unplanned care.