Our Appointments System Is Changing From Tuesday 18 March
As part of our continued drive to improve access to health care at Ellergreen Medical Centre, we are pleased to announce that you will soon be able to request your GP/ANP appointment online via PATCHS. The service will go live on Tuesday 18th March 2025. From that day the link will be visible via the “Appointments” section of our website, with further updates and links happening in the near future.
Our phone lines will still remain active for those who are unable to use online services, but this new service will be quicker and more convenient for those who can access it.
PATCHS have released an introductory video.
Some of our patients already use this service to request sick notes and other letters, but it is now being expanded to allow for appointment requests. If you already have a log in, you are already to go. If you haven’t used the service before, you can either log your request as a guest, use your NHS login or register an account to ensure you are kept up to date and can track the progress of your request, as explained in this video.
Once you have submitted your request, the surgery aim to respond within 72 hours. Please note that this response may be in the form of a text or an email so please make sure your contact details are correct and up to date.
Overall the system being operated by the practice will be no different than how we have operated since total triage started on 4th November 2024. There are however some key points to be aware of:
- Both telephone and online services run side by side and share equal priority. They will be available Monday to Friday 8am until 6:30pmor until capacity is reached. Whilst we aim to respond to all requests as timely as possible, requests submitted late in the day may not be seen by a clinician until the following day. If your condition is deteriorating whilst you are waiting on a reply, please phone the surgery, 111 or 999.
- You will now need to give more details about the nature of your request. Whether you use the online services or call and speak to our care navigators, you will be asked the same questions and your request will be triaged and screened in the same way. As we will be asking for more details, you will likely find that the online portal will be quicker as phone calls with patients will be longer. Patients will still be directed towards other local services or teams regardless of how they contact the surgery, so please watch out for updates once you have submitted your request.
- If you have complex or several issues to discuss, please provide as much detail about each condition as possible. This will require you to submit several online requests on the same day. If you do not answer in enough detail you may be asked to resubmit your request or be directed to the wrong service.
- Once your request is submitted and screened, it will be loaded onto our appointment book. This can sometimes appear as an appointment in the NHS app. Please be aware, this is not an actual appointment at the practice. It just means that your triage request is being processed and has been booked into a virtual slot on our computers. The time does not reflect when your request will be dealt with and you should not turn up at the GP surgery at that time. If you have been allocated a specific face to face appointment, you will receive separate notification of this (text or phone call) and this takes priority over anything you seen in the NHS app.
- Submitting a request does not guarantee an appointment. As with the current system the number of appointments each day is dictated by the number of clinicians each day and how many patients they can safely see. Whilst we will respond to every request we receive within 72 hours, that response may direct you to other services if our safe working capacity has been breached.
- If safe working capacity has been breached or the practice is closed, you will see a notification on PATCHS to indicate this. This notification will also update you on how to access healthcare at that time.