Important Changes to The Lodge Health Partnership Appointment System

Patients are now able to choose if they want a telephone appointment or face to face appointment.  Please make your wishes known to the receptionist.  We will be able to offer more appointments online as we don’t need to speak to you first.  Please ensure you have the NHS app to make appointments online.

We will have a daily duty doctor who will be dealing with emergencies only so please be respectful to the reception team if you are not offered an appointment the same day.  You may also be offered an appointment with other clinicians such as advanced nurse practitioners, nurses, pharmacists, physician associates, mental health nurse or referred to the community pharmacy scheme.  These allied health professionals are the best people to see for certain conditions and will be able to give you more time than a GP.

For routine concerns the quickest way to get through to the surgery is to complete an online consultation- go to www.lodgesurgery.co.uk and select ‘eConsult’.  Complete a general health enquiry.  A member of the team will get back to you within 72 hours, often sooner to book you an appointment if you need one.  Many enquiries can be dealt with without an appointment.  This method will also save you from hanging on the telephone as we appreciate our phone lines are busy.  Please use this service for routine queries.

The NHS is incredibly stretched in general and we are experiencing demand like we have never seen before. We therefore may need to consider capping access if the level of demand reaches an unsafe level.  You may be asked to go to a local Pharmacy, call 111 or go to one of the urgent care centres or walk in centres in the area.  This decision will not be made lightly but we have to ensure the GPs working as duty doctor can operate safely.