Cavendish Health Centre

Help! How do I get in touch with the practice? Information on Access

 

We have changed the system of how you can book a routine appointment to try to improve waiting times. The demand on our surgery has increased dramatically since pre covid.  In addition, there has been a huge increase in missed appointments which is making our wait time longer. We had 244 missed appointments in September.  

We have changed our appointment system to make it more accessible and hopefully reduce the wait time. Appointments are now released in advance: at 4 weeks, 2 weeks and 48 hours before the appointment time.
 

 

This should mean you won’t have such a long wait for an appointment but can also book in advance if this is what suits you.  

Of course, we always have access on the day for urgent problems via our duty doctor.

Please help us to help you:
 

• Cancel your appointment if it is no longer needed so that another patient can benefit for it.

• Please be ready to explain to the receptionist the nature of your problem when requesting an appointment (whether it is urgent or routine) – this is so that our team can book you in with the appropriate clinician which may also mean an earlier appointment (Nurse, Healthcare Assistant, Phlebotomist, Clinical Pharmacist, First Contact Physio, Social Prescriber, Care Navigator etc).

There are also routine appointments available at hub practices with short waiting times: Connaught Square and Pimlico (evening and weekend)

• GP (telephone)

• Advanced Nurse Practitioner (Pimlico only)

• Nurse

• Healthcare Assistant

• Clinical Pharmacist

 Patchs  

• New system implemented by North West London

• Use this for any non urgent health questions, fit notes or to send us a message and we will try our best to respond in 48 hours.

• Please send us a photo if this would help explain your condition.

• Please do not use this for anything urgent as we do not always receive them promptly.

• Available 8am – 6.30pm, Monday to Friday via our website.

Please note depending on the nature of your problem, it may the case that you still need to book in for a face to face appointment for example if you need to be examined in person.  Any complex queries which need a full discussion will need an appointment (telephone or face to face).
 

Emergencies
Please call our reception team (02074875244) and explain you feel you have an emergency.  
The reception team are trained to ask you a few questions about your problem. Please answer them as well as you can.  
This is important as they will be able to direct you to the most appropriate service or add you to the duty doctor list for a callback on the same day.  
The duty doctor reads the summary written by reception and calls patients back based on clinical urgency.  
This is not a first come first seen service and you cannot be provided with a specific time for a call.  
If the doctor feels it is not an emergency then they may recommend that you book a routine appointment.
Available 8am – 6.30pm, Monday to Friday via our reception team (please phone in the morning if possible so the doctor can arrange a face to face appointment for you on the day if needed).

 Requesting prescriptions

Please continue to request your regular medication via SystmOnline
This is directly linked to your repeat prescriptions on your record therefore is faster and easier to process.
Please do not use patches to request prescriptions as this is not linked directly to your online record and can result in delays.  
Turnaround time: 48 hours (working days).

Please note that new medications may need an appointment to discuss first.  If a specialist has advised that you need a specific medication please send us the letter from the specialist with clear instructions on name of medication, dose and the reason why it should be prescribed.

 Missed Appointments
We continue to have a high number of missed appointments.
Please cancel your appointment if you are unable to make it or speak with our reception team who will try and rearrange it for you.  

Late for Appointments
Whilst we appreciate clinics are often running late, this usually happens because a doctor is having to spend extra time looking after an unwell patient.  
In order to treat each patient fairly, if you are more than 10 minutes late for your appointment the doctor may ask you to reschedule or wait until the end of the clinic to see you. 

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Prospective Access to Full Medical Records

Please note automatic access to prospective medical records for anyone 16y+ has now been postponed from the previous launch date of 1st November 2022. It is expected that this will now launch later in 2023.


What will be included in the online view?

Entries added from 01/11/22 onwrards including:
 

• Appointments

• Medication lists-Both acute and repeat in all apps, past drugs will show in the NHS App

• Allergies

• Documents / letters

• Test results

• Coded data, including Problem lists

• Consultation entries

• Immunisations

What are the benefits?

A patient with access to their own health data can better understand their own health, can research their own conditions, can have better ownership of their management and can be more responsible for their health outcomes. The patient may also be better enabled to monitor prescriptions, book and cancel appointments and to check results and referrals.

 

Note: Please be cautious when viewing your medical data once this access programme is rolled out and note that you may need to download information to view it. As such, if you are viewing your data on a non-private device please ensure you delete any downloaded items as well as logging off the system once you have finished viewing it, otherwise it may be available for other people to view.