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, you can help us by calling reception before 10am. The Triage Advisor will take your name, number and brief details of the problem. A Clinician will either phone you back or attend later in the day.

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.

Do I need a home visit?

GP visit recommended

Home visiting makes clinical sense and is the best way of giving medical opinion, in cases involving:

•The terminally ill.

•The truly housebound patient for whom travel to premises by car would cause deterioration in their medical condition.

GP visit may be useful

Following a conversation with a health professional, it may be agreed that a seriously ill patient may be helped by a GP's visit.

GP visit is not usual

In most of these cases a visit would not be an appropriate use of your GP's time or best for you:

•Common symptoms of childhood: fevers, cold, cough, earache, headache, diarrhoea/vomiting and most cases of abdominal pain. These patients are usually well enough to travel, to the surgery. It is not harmful to take a child with fever outside.

•Adults with common problems, such as cough, sore throat, influenza, general malaise, back pain and abdominal pain are also readily transportable to the doctor's surgery.