Appointments

We offer a mix of pre-bookable and book on the day appointments.  These appointments are a mix of face to face or telephone consultations. 

Once all our routine appointments are gone for the day, our clinicians will telephone triage all requests for urgent treatment and advice.  If your problem is not urgent but there are no pre-bookable appointments available in an acceptable timeframe, you will be asked to call again opportunistically for a routine book on the day appointment.

Our receptionists are trained to ask you what you need to consult about, this ensures you see or speak to the most appropriate member of the healthcare team and also enables our clinicians to deal with telephone calls in order of clinical urgency.

In addition to our in-house clinicians we have other services at our disposal which you may be offered as an alternative to seeing or talking to an Arlington Road Clinician.  Please see below for more information about the Extended Access Appointments and the Community Pharmacy Consultation Service.

Extended Access Appointments

South Downs Health and Care GP Federation (SDHC) provides additional appointment capacity for all GP Practices in Eastbourne, Hailsham and Seaford as well as the Havens and High Weald.

The Enhanced Access Service (EAS) that they deliver is designed to help increase the capacity to talk to and see a healthcare professional. Appointments are available 7 days per week, 365 days per year.

The GP or Advanced Care Practitioner that you see or speak to will not be from Arlington Road and it is very possible they won’t be from East Sussex but the Healthcare Professional that you speak with will be fully qualified, will be able to access your notes and will be able to issue a prescription if needed.

These appointments are bookable via our receptionists, you may be routinely offered one of these consultations and if not, you are welcome to ask to book one.  Face to face appointments tend to be located at the SDHC Primary Care Hub at Hampden Park Health Centre, Brodrick Close.

Community Pharmacy Consultation Service (CPCS)

We are also now participating in a new approach to improve access for patients to GP appointments. The aim is to direct patients to the most appropriate healthcare professional, which may be a GP or a pharmacist.

If your symptoms could be resolved by a booked consultation with the pharmacist instead of the GP, you may be offered a same-day referral to a pharmacy of your choice.

We think this is a good thing. Once you see how great your local pharmacist is – they are highly trained and skilled clinicians experienced in treating minor illnesses – we don’t think you’ll look back.

This will also help us to free up GP appointments for people with more complex health needs and ensure that everyone gets treated at the right time, by the right healthcare professional.

We are keen to hear what your think and will be listening to your comments and feedback about your experience of using this service.

Q & A’s about CPCS

What is this new service about?

When you call the practice, you will be asked about your symptoms. If they indicate that you can best be helped by a pharmacist, you will be offered a same day one-to-one, confidential consultation with a community pharmacist at one of our local pharmacies. Community pharmacists have already successfully seen thousands of patients for a consultation for a minor illness, following a call to NHS 111. This new way of arranging consultations with the pharmacist by a GP practice, has been successfully piloted around the country.

Why are you doing this?

Pharmacists are qualified healthcare professionals and experts in medicines. They can offer clinical advice and over-the-counter medicines for all sorts of minor illnesses, and a same day consultation can be arranged quickly and at a time to suit you. This in turns frees up GP appointments for those people with more complex symptoms who really need to see a GP.

What happens when I see the community pharmacist?

We will share your personal details with the pharmacist and details of your minor illness and the pharmacist will contact you to arrange your consultation on the same day, or at a time that suits you. You may be seen in person in a private consulting room, if the pharmacist thinks it appropriate, or your consultation may be carried out over the phone or via video. You will be asked about your medical history and symptoms and current medication, in the same way the GP would ask you about them. Usually, the pharmacist will provide you with advice and can sell you an over- the-counter product where needed, if you choose. They will also send details of your consultation back to us for our records. If the pharmacist feels you need to be seen by a GP urgently, they will call us to ensure you are seen, or they will advise you to contact the hospital emergency department if deemed necessary. You may also be referred back to us to arrange a non-urgent appointment or follow up.

Being referred by the Surgery and having an actual Consultation with the Pharmacist is very different to just getting advice over the counter from the Pharmacy Counter Assistant.

What if I get free prescriptions from my GP?

Your pharmacist will provide you with advice on how to treat your symptoms, which may include a medicine or product. Medicines that can be purchased in a pharmacy to treat minor illnesses, are usually inexpensive and would not normally be prescribed by your GP anyway. You are free to choose if you wish to make a purchase or not.

What happens if I don’t want to see the pharmacist?

We want to ensure that you are offered an appointment with the most appropriate qualified health care professional based on your symptoms. If you have minor illness symptoms that can be treated the same day through a consultation with a qualified community pharmacist, but do not want to accept this referral, you will be offered a routine appointment with your GP at a future date.

What if the patient is my child?

Children aged over one year are eligible to use this service and can be seen by the pharmacist. Children who are able to make their own decision about their health may be seen unaccompanied.

Why is this a good thing for patients?

Community pharmacies are local, open longer hours than the GP practice and can offer you the same consultation outcome at a time that is more convenient for you. If the pharmacist thinks you need to see the GP, they can help arrange an urgent appointment for you. Patients who have already used the service liked the convenience of having a consultation on the same day, or a day that suited them, at a pharmacy of their choice. Nearly four out of five people (78%) who had a consultation with a community pharmacist were successfully helped.

Cancellations

Remember if you cannot keep an appointment or no longer need it please contact us to cancel it, you can do this by one of the following methods...

• Telephoning into the Practice and leaving an answerphone message on the appointment cancellation line at any time of day or night
• Telephoning the Practice during the working day and speaking to a receptionist
• Via Patient Online Services, if you have registered for this service.  
• Replying 'cancel' to your SMS appointment reminder.

As we continue to experience a high number of unattended pre-booked appointments we will write to you if you miss a doctor’s appointment. After three missed appointments it is the practice policy to only allow you to book appointments through the receptionists and not via Patient Online Services.

Appointment Reminders 

We have the facility to send SMS appointment reminders.  To benefit from this service, please ensure you have given us an up to date mobile number.  The service will remind you of your appointment and also give you the opportunity to cancel your appointment by replying with the word 'cancel'.  You will be charged at your normal network rate for the reply.  Please do not include any other text with your message as this will not be recognised by the system and will result in the appointment not being automatically cancelled.

Home Visits

 During Surgery Hours - Telephone 727531

If you are unwell and think you may require a home visit, please ring the above number before 10:30 if possible. Home visits will only be made where the clinician considers that there is a medical need. The clinician may ring back before coming to see you in order to obtain more details, as there may be a more appropriate way of dealing with the problem, such as a direct referral to hospital.

Pets and Home Visits

• Are you too unwell to attend the Surgery and require a home visit?
• Do you have a pet in the house?

Sickness Certificates - Now known as Fit Notes

You only need a doctor’s note if you are unable to work and are ill for longer than seven calendar days. If you are sick for less than a week you do not need a certificate and your employer should not ask you to provide one. The employer may want you to fill in a self certificate but they will provide this or you can download one from the HMRC website.

If your employer is insisting on a certificate even though you will be off work for less than a week we can provide a private certificate but either you or the employer will have to pay for it (currently the cost is £35.00).

We will obviously only issue a certificate of either sort if we are satisfied that your illness is sufficient to keep you off work. This will probably mean seeing you face to face or sometimes speaking to you on the telephone unless we have a letter from the hospital or another doctor when we may be able to issue a certificate without needing to see you.

Statement of Fitness for Work - ’Fit Note'

The 'fit note' was introduced on 6 April 2010. With your employer's support, the note will help you return to work sooner by providing more information about the effects of your illness or injury.

For more information see the DirectGov website.

GUIDANCE FOR PARENTS ASKED TO PROVIDE A GP NOTE FOR SCHOOL

Please note that GP’s do not have a statutory duty to provide informal sick notes for children. Your relationship with the school should be such that any concerns over a child’s absence can be resolved without the need for you or the school to ask your GP to provide any supporting evidence.

1. Relating to school attendance:

The school may ask you to provide a written note explaining your child’s absence from school. In most cases, this should be sufficient evidence for the school to authorise the absence. In some cases the school may request supportive evidence. In these cases, schools nationally have been asked to accept a prescription or an appointment card as evidence rather than a GP letter.

If you need to obtain a record of your GP appointment from the surgery, please ask our receptionist who will be able to provide evidence of the appointment time, with our surgery stamp. There is no charge for this service.

Occasionally, a school may feel that further evidence is required. Before our surgery is engaged, there is an expectation that you and the school will meet face to face beforehand in order to discuss and hopefully resolve the concern without the need for the surgery to be involved.

Evidence available from the surgery, following your meeting with the school, is as follows

1. a) You may give the school permission to speak to our Practice Manager who will be able to confirm/ provide a list of dates where your child has attended for an appointment. The Practice Manager will not be able to provide any detailed information on the reason for the appointment or the period of time that the child may need to be absent from school due to illness. Please authorise these requests using this form.

1. b) The school may ask you to provide a GP letter, detailing your child’s illness and the likely duration your child will be absent from school. A GP appointment is NOT required in order for you to request such a letter. Please complete this authorisation/request form and hand this in at reception.

Please note these GP letters relating to school absence CANNOT be provided free of charge on the NHS. Agreement must be met at the meeting between you and the school prior to these requests as to who will meet the costs of this GP letter. The expected cost of this service will be £15.00.

2. Relating to requests for special consideration:

The following national guidance has been sent out to all GP’s, schools and colleges by the General Practitioners’ Council/ British Medical Association:

“Schools and colleges should note that GPs will not provide sick notes in support of special consideration applications. A medical certificate is not necessary when making an application for special consideration where a candidate misses an exam or their performance in an exam is affected as a result of a temporary illness/injury. As long as the school/college supports the application for special consideration this is considered sufficient evidence’.

In these above situations, please arrange to discuss your child’s educational requirements directly with the school. Your relationship with the school should be such that the school is able to submit an application to the examination board without the need of GP evidence.

If, in a very rare situation, the school feels that further supportive evidence is required before they are willing to either support or submit an application to the examination board, then this first needs to be discussed with you as the parent. If no agreement can be met between school and parent, and it is felt that a GP letter is required, then again, agreement will have to be reached between the school and parent as to who will meet the fee associated with such a GP letter. These letters will NOT be provided free of charge.

GP Registrars

We are a training practice and train doctors to be General Practitioners. They are fully qualified and must have done at least two year's hospital medicine before they can start their General practice Training. They are known as GP Specialist Registrars and the training lasts three years, most of the first two years takes place in Hospital but at least one year (including all of their final year) takes place in General practice.

The whole practice is involved in training, although Dr Jones is the trainersresponsible for the Registrars. We all benefit greatly from having these young doctors in the practice. Learning and teaching is a two way process and the Registrars help to keep us all up to date.

Registrars provide extra appointments in the practice which helps us to cope with our workload and hopefully makes it easier for you to see a doctor when you need to. They often have longer to talk to you than your own doctor would have. If they are not sure what is wrong with you they can call for help.

Part of their training and successful completion of their course involves videoing their consultations. These videos are viewed afterwards by the registrars themselves and probably their trainer. Occasionally, they are viewed by other registrars as part of the training process, and they may be viewed by examiners (who are all GP Trainers) as part of the final assessment that ensures that all doctors are competent to practise unsupervised. We would ask you not to lightly refuse permission for your consultation to be videoed. You can always ask the doctor not to use the video if you don't like the way the consultation went. We always ask you to sign your permission beforehand and then again afterwards. If you change your mind we won't view the video!

We feel that teaching helps to keep the practice up to the highest standards.

FY2 Doctors

Following recent modernisation of the training and career structure of doctors in the NHS, the first two years after qualifying as doctors are now known as Foundation Year 1 (FY1) and Foundation Year 2 (FY2). One of the changes introduced as part of this modernisation is the idea that as many doctors as possible should experience a period of time in general practice regardless of their eventual chosen career in medicine. We in general practice support this wholeheartedly and are convinced that, regardless of the specialty they eventually choose, all doctors will benefit from an insight into the workings of general practice. Therefore, our practice now accommodates FY2 doctors for periods of four months as part of their training. They work closely with us and are under supervision throughout their time with us. We are sure that this arrangement will benefit patient care in the future.

The whole practice is involved in training, although Dr McFadden is the trainer responsible for the FY2 doctors.