Home Visits

The need for a housecall will be assessed by a clincian.  You will be asked for information by staff including details of your illness.  This information is treated in the strictest confidence.  It is needed by the doctors to decide which visits are most urgent.  The clinician will ring you for further information.

We are guided by established NHS criteria for determining when home visits are necessary.  These criteria state that: "a practice will provide at the home of a registered or a non-registered patient in its practice area such services as the practice is contracted to provide during hours which do not fall in the out-of-hours period when, in light of the patient’s medical condition, the doctor considers that such services are needed and would most appropriately be delivered by means of a home visit".

We offer a more effective service if patients are able to attend the surgery where the patient’s medical records are held, and where equipment and conditions enable a more thorough assessment.

In most cases we will not accept a lack of transport as a reason for a home visit.

Please remember that several patients can be seen in the practice in the time that it takes to make one home visit.  There are also better facilities for examining and treating patients at the Medical Centre.

The practice visit patients:

• who are housebound by their illness
• whose condition would deteriorate if they were moved
• who are terminally ill