Booking appointments
- Appointments are made by telephoning the surgery and take place within the practice be it on the phone or in person.
- Urgent cases will always be dealt with as soon as possible, otherwise you will be offered the first available appointment with a doctor/triage staff within 48 hours.
- Appointments will be 10 minutes long, but if you feel you need longer please let us know before the time of booking.
- Sick child and urgent appointments – cases will be seen as soon as possible if the patient calls the surgery.
- There is an out of hours service that patients can use.
- Occasionally you might be asked to complete a Friends And Family Test Questionnaire; regarding your experience with the practice. The aim of this is to help us to improve our services.
Waltham Forest GP evening and weekend appointments
GP evening and weekend appointments are available to Waltham Forest residents. People living in Waltham Forest are now able to make an appointment to see a GP in the evening and at weekends. Waltham Forest residents are now able to access more evening and weekend appointments with a GP and nurse at four primary care ‘hubs’ in the borough.
These appointments are funded by Waltham Forest CCG and delivered by Waltham Forest GP Federation.
The hubs are located in the following four practices and appointments are available for anyone who is registered with any GP practice in Waltham Forest:
- Triangle House Health Centre, 2-8 Harrow Road, Leytonstone, London, E11 3QF
- Higham Hill Medical Centre, 258-260 Higham Hill Road, Walthamstow, London, E17 5RQ
- Handsworth Medical Centre, 5 Handsworth Avenue, Chingford, London, E4 9PD
- Allum Medical Centre, Fairlop Road, Leytonstone, London, E11 1BN
To support more people who need to be seen urgently by a local doctor, same day appointments in the hubs are available every weekday evening between 6.30PM–10.00PM, and 8.00AM– 8.00PM on weekends.
Appointments can only be booked by calling 020 8519 3999.
Monday to Friday 12.00PM – 8.00PM Saturday and Sunday 8.00AM – 6.00PM Weekend services are provided by Waltham Forest GP Network
These appointments can not be pre-booked and are just for emergencies.
Home visits
If possible, please try to ring the practice before 10.00AM if you require a home visit.
You may only request a home visit if:
- You are a housebound patient
- Or are too ill to visit the practice (if this is case, please provide as much information as you can so we can give this to the doctor)
Your Doctor will only visit you at home, if they think that your medical condition requires it and will also decide on how urgent the visit is needed.
Please be aware that that it is not possible to specify which doctor will attend any emergency home visit as they are the delegated doctor on-call at the time.
Telephone advice
To speak to one of our doctors please contact the practice and provide as much information as you can (your name and contact number) to assist the doctor dealing with your query.
Please think before you call. Please help the doctors and other patients by being considerate.
If you are waiting for a call from one our doctors, please keep your line free as the doctor will try calling no more than twice.
If the doctor can not get through to you at the time in which the call is made, a note will be put on your personal patient file to record that the doctor tried to call you.
Late arrivals for appointments
If a patient is late for a routine appointment, it is practice policy to ask the patient to make another appointment, however, the doctor or nurse may still see you if time allows. Time keeping is essential if we are to provide patients with the best treatment and service they expect. We do ask for your patience if the clinician is running slightly late. We endeavour to run to time but the nature of our work does not always allow this to be possible.
DNA’S (Did Not Attend)
If a patient has booked an appointment and has more than 3 DNA’s, the patient will receive a letter reminding them that they need to start to come in for appointments when they book them, as this is a financial impact on NHS funding.
If the patient continues to fail to turn up for booked appointments, as the time and money can be well spent on patients that actually do attend appointments, the patient will receive a letter informing them that if they continue with booking and not attending appointments, the patient will be removed from the practice.
