HOME VISIT REQUESTS
Please ring before 11 am wherever possible if you need a home visit. The on-call doctor will first triage the visit over the telephone and arrange for a visit appropriately. If due to unforeseen circumstances you may need to ring after 12 noon. The on-call Doctor will make every effort to visit. However, if they are tied up in the surgery/other busy on-call duties, we may arrange for “Recovery at Home” a local home visiting team to do the visit. Please note that for every home visit done the clinician could deal with up to five face to face appointments . It is important to bear in in mind that lack of transport or child care are not appropriate reasons for a home visit.
GP VISITING GUIDELINES
These guidelines have been drawn up by the Local Medical Committee in conjunction with the Community Health Council.
In order to ensure that the best use is made of your GP services, please attend the surgery whenever possible.
If you need advice you can contact 111 for further assistance.
1.GP visit recommended
Home visiting makes clinical sense and is the best way of giving medical opinion in cases involving:
- The terminally ill
- The truly housebound patient for whom travel to premises by car would cause deterioration in their medical condition
2. GP visit may be useful
Following a conversation with a health professional, it may be agreed that a seriously ill patient may be helped by a GP
3. GP visit is not usual
In most of these cases, a visit would not be an appropriate:
- Heart attack (severe crushing chest pain). The sensible approach is to call an emergency paramedical ambulance.
- Common symptoms of childhood: fevers, cold, cough, earache, headache, diarrhoea/vomiting and most cases of abdominal pain
- These patients are usually well enough to travel to the surgery. It is not harmful to take a child with fever outside.
- Adults with common problems, such as cough, sore throat, influenza, general malaise, back pain and abdominal pain are also readily transportable to the doctor.
- Transport arrangements are the responsibility of the patients or their carers.