Requesting a home visit

Requests for home visits should be made between (8.30 – 10.00am,) but patients are reminded that it is preferable that consultations take place in the surgery where diagnostic facilities are ideal. Emergency requests can be made at any time, but it is essential that the nature of the emergency is stated as home visits are usually restricted to Elderly, housebound, or seriously ill patient. We cannot guarantee that one of our practice GP’s will attend as we use the Acute In-hours Visiting Service (AIVS) to support the GP’s when demand is high. AIVS will visit with 6 hours of the visit being passed to them.

Due to increasing demand on primary care services and an ongoing national shortage of GPs we have had to outline a home visiting policy.

• Terminally ill;
• Bedbound;
• Severely ill and cannot be mobilised.

Please remember that a doctor can see up to four patients in surgery in the time it takes to make one home visit. Patients can also be examined more thoroughly in a surgery environment and there is access to all your medical records including those held on computer. Please help us to help you and our other patients by visiting the surgery whenever possible.

Transport/social problems – We cannot undertake home visits for reasons of convenience, lack of transport, or because simply a patient is a resident in a residential care home, sheltered accomodation or nursing home. We will be happy to provide you with details of local taxi firms and volunteer car services. From experience, we are aware that relatives, neighbours or friends are often willing to help out. Our responsibility to you is to resolve the medical problem you have; your responsibility is to take all the reasonable steps you are able to, to enable us to do that.

If you are too ill to attend the surgery and require a home visit, please telephone before 10.00am, if possible. This will help the healthcare team to plan their visits for the day. Late requests often lead to disruption of the appointment system and excessive waiting times for others. A member of the healthcare team may telephone you prior to the visit to assess the need for a home visit and may decide that it would be better to see you at the surgery. Alternatively it may be that your problem can be dealt with by telephone advice and also prepares the health professional to collect some information required as necessary for the visit. We cannot guarantee that one of our practice GP’s will attend as we use the Acute In-hours Visiting Service (AIVS) to support the GP’s when demand is high. AIVS will visit with 6 hours of the visit being passed to them.

We would like to stress that NO patient in definite need of a home visit will be refused.