Online Appointment Booking System
SystmOnline
Non-urgent advice: New Appointments System
Appointments are still very much at a premium. We would ask you to only book clinician appointments where absolutely necessary. For routine medication queries or administrative queries please speak to our reception team.
For minor illness please consider self help or consult with your local pharmacist.
How To Book An Appointment
Simply telephone 0113 295 1600 to speak with one of our care navigation team. Feel free to ask for a specific clinician but please appreciate that this may not always be possible at the time you’d like the appointment.
Please don’t be offended if the care navigator asks you for a few details regarding your problem or query. They are trying to help you to the most appropriate clinician as efficiently as possible. You absolutely do not have to give this information, but it does help the staff to book you the most appropriate appointment.
Alternatively you can register for online access and book your appointment over the web. See below for more details.
Our clinicians do endeavour to keep to the appointed times. However, please appreciate that sometimes clinicians are called to an emergency or need to spend more with one particular patient, causing them to run late. If you are concerned ask one of our care navigators to check how a clinician is doing.
Home Visits: Housebound Patients
Patients are requested, where possible, to telephone before 11am if a home visit is required that day.
We would request that, apart from the genuinely housebound, all other patients attend the surgery rather than request a home visit because of the extra time home visiting takes. On average four to five patients can be seen in surgery in the time it takes to do a single house call. In addition, the care that can be offered due to the lack of adequate lighting, examination facilities and equipment means that you may not receive as good a service as the doctor may be able to offer if you came to the surgery.
Please note that the doctor may telephone you rather than visit you if this is medically appropriate.
Appointments for Elderly Patients
Fountain Medical Centre are continually looking at ways to improve the services we offer to patients and listen to feedback from patients on how our service can be improved. We are aware that some patients have difficulty in contacting the practice by telephone when the surgery opens each morning at 7:00am as the lines are very busy and apologise if this has caused you any problems.
We have introduced a new way for patients to contact the surgery when the telephones are quieter. This will mean patients will not need to phone at 7:00am. Letters are sent out to patients in this group to advise what the best time is to contact the surgery (this is when the phones are a little quieter) and also use the new direct telephone number.
Changes have been made to the daily appointments for GP’s and Advanced Nurse Practitioner’s (ANP) so that appointments are available only for elderly patients to book. We have added additional appointment slots in the morning and afternoon that are available to pre-book and book on the day.
Non-urgent advice: Cancel An Appointment
It is important that you inform the care navigation team if you are unable to attend your appointment, this will allow that appointment to be offered to another patient. If you fail to notify the Practice that you are unable to attend, you will be sent a letter informing you that you have defaulted from your appointment. Persistent defaulters maybe removed from the list.
Additional information
Weekend Appointments
Our patients can now book weekend GP and healthcare assistant appointments on Saturday from 08:00 – 14:00 and Sunday from 08:00 – 12:00.
You will be seen at Windsor House Surgery.
Calls to our telephone number will be diverted to the weekend service when it is open.
Out Of Hours
How to Chase A Hospital Appointment or Referral
Sometimes you may get referred for an appointment with a service based at one of our local hospitals or private providers. This is called being referred and is usually done through an electronic system called the NHS E-Referral service (previously called Choose and Book)
If you have been referred to another service it is important that contact that service if you have any questions.
You can contact them at this address [email protected].
Of course, if you have tried to contact a service and still need extra support our medical secretaries will do their best to help. Please ring the secretaries direct on 0113 22003346