GP Appointments

• We have on  the day appointments for emergencies
• Routine appointments where you will be seen in a few days
• Advanced bookings where you can book appointments up to 6 weeks in advance.

Appointments can be made in person or be telephoning the surgery. For on the day emergencies our reception staff have been trained to take a basic history of your condition to ensure that we are booking you in with the correct clinician. Please not that for GP emergency appointments you will be booked in with whichever GP is on duty and not necessarily your preferred GP.

It is very important to keep staff up to date of any changes to your contact telephone number or any other personal details which may affect the surgery being able to contact you. 

The Cobridge and Norton surgeries are linked through a computer system allowing patients to easily make appointments for either surgery. For on the day emergency appointments patients need to ring at 8 am if possible.

If your condition has resolved please cancel your appointment in order that someone else may have it.

Home Visits

If possible please try to telephone reception before 10 am if you require a home visit.

A doctor or nurse may phone you back as it may be that your problem can be dealt with by telephone advice, or that it would be more appropriate to send a nurse, or indeed arrange a hospital attendance.

Home visits are only available for patients who are housebound because of illness or disability.

Please remember that several patients can be seen in the practice in the time that it takes to make one home visit. There are also better facilities for examining and treating patients at the surgery.

The Role of the Nurse Practitioner

We are very lucky to have three excellent Advanced Nurse Practitioners with the ability to prescribe independently as part of our Clinical team. Sister Rushton and John Cumberbatch who will see the majority of our acute 'on the day' minor ailment patients as well as caring for our patients with complex chronic diseases. If you ring for an emergency appointment your appointment will be either scheduled with the Nurse Practitioner or a GP depending on the nature of the problem.

Appointments with the Nurse

If you need an appointment with the Nurse the staff at reception will ask you what the appointment is for. This is to ensure that we book you in with correct member of the nursing team. Appointments with the Practice Nurses and Healthcare support workers are to be made in advance as we don't operate an 'on the day' policy except for emergency dressings of wounds.

Appointments are now being offered in our local area outside of GP working hours.

If your GP can not get you in at the surgery they can now select extended hours clinics & where there is availability in the local area they can offer you an out of hours appointment.

These appointments will not be held at your local surgery & it will not be your usual doctor who you will see for the appointment.

Help us to help you!

If you book an appointment and don't intend to keep it please contact the surgery to let us know. This way another patient could make use of that appointment.

Do not turn up late for appointments. Patients that turn up late for appointments will normally be asked to re-book. Doctors and Nurses are very busy and if patients turn up late then they run late for the whole surgery which is not fair to all of the other patients who arrived on time for their appointments. The reception staff will often ask the clinician first to see if they are prepared to see you. If they are then please be prepared to wait until all of the patients who turned up on time are seen.

Keep us updated with mobile telephone numbers and email addresses to ensure that if we want to contact you for whatever reason, then we are able to get hold of you.

We are not a walk in centre. If you want an appointment on the same day you must contact the surgery at 8 am to book an on the day emergency appointment. If you walk in you will be advised to sit and wait until a clinician is free to see you.