Home Visits

Whilst we encourage our patients to come to the surgery, where we have the proper equipment and facilities available, we do appreciate this is not always possible. In this respect, if you do need a home visit, please call reception before 10am.

You may only request a home visit if you are housebound or are too ill to visit the practice. Your GP will only visit you at home if they think that your medical condition requires it and will also decide how urgently a visit is needed. Please bear this in mind and be prepared to provide suitable details to enable the doctor to schedule house calls

You can also be visited at home by a community nurse if you are referred by your GP. You should also be visited at home by a health visitor if you have recently had a baby or if you are newly registered with a GP and have a child under five years.

Urgent Home Visits

The Acute Visiting Service will be used when a patient telephones the surgery requesting an urgent visit. An urgent visit is when a patient requires a visit within 4 hours of contacting the GP practice.

In most cases, to visit the following would not be clinically indicated

  • Common Symptoms of childhood
  • fevers
  • cold
  • cough
  • earache
  • headache
  • diarrhoea/vomiting
  • abdominal pain (most cases of)

These patients are usually well enough to travel by car. It is not harmful to take a child with a fever outside. These children may not be fit to travel by bus or to walk, but car transport is generally available from friends, relatives or taxi companies. We regret that the surgery cannot arrange transport to the surgery.

Adults with common problems, such as cough, sore throat, influenza, back pain and abdominal pain are also readily transportable to the surgery.

Common problems in the elderly, such as poor mobility, joint pain, and general malaise would also best be managed in the surgery.

The exception to this rule would be the truly bed-bound.

GP home visiting makes clinical sense and is the best way to give a medial opinion in cases involving

  • Terminal illness
  • The truly bed bound patient for whom travel to premises by car would cause a deterioration to their medical condition or cause unacceptable discomfort.

GP Visit may be Useful

After an initial assessment over the telephone, a seriously ill patient may be helped by a GPs attendance to prepare them for travel to hospital; that is, where a GP’s other commitment does not prevent him/her arriving before the ambulance.

Examples of such a situation are:-

  • Heart attacks/severe chest pain
  • Severe shortness of breath
  • Severe bleeding

In some cases it may be appropriate for the GP to arrange for an emergency ambulance.