Appointments

We ask that you contact the Surgery on 01202 464500 and provide us with a telephone number where you can be contacted at a particular time. When your doctor is next at the Surgery he or she will telephone you and discuss the matter. It may be appropriate for advice to be given or for you to see another professional or have a test first in order to make the entire procedure more effective. 

If an appointment is needed, this will be agreed by the doctor within a very short time and we aim to see you within 48 hours. Obviously there are times when your doctor may be away from the Surgery or on holiday. If the matter is not urgent, you are asked to wait for him or her to contact you as above.

If the matter cannot wait, you may be contacted by another doctor or locum doctor, or be advised to come to the Open Surgery, which is Nurse led and held each weekday.

The service operates from Highcliffe Medical Centre or Christchurch Medical Practice, but is open to all Christchurch patients who need an urgent appointment over the weekend. The service will offer both GP and Nurse appointments at the surgery. To arrange an appointment please telephone 111

If you would like one of these appointments, please speak to Reception who can arrange this for you. It may be necessary for us to offer you an appointment at the Urgent Treatment Centre between Monday and Friday during our normal opening hours if we have no available appointments in the practice. Out of hours you can call 111 where a triage process will determine whether an appointment is needed before directing you to the most appropriate service. 

Appointments at the Urgent Treatment Centre are pre-bookable (unlike A&E) so waiting times following your arrival are similar to being seen in the practice. The Urgent Treatment Centre is located close to the entrance to A&E and is clearly signposted. 

We are currently running this service via telephone appointments only, however a face to face appointment will be made by the clinician if needed. 

The service is available to book into 08.30 to 10.15 am Monday to Friday.

The following are NOT APPROPRIATE and we respectfully ask you not use the clinic for: 

• An Ongoing or Longstanding Problem
• Chronic Illness which your GP is treating you for
• Prescription Requests
• BP, HRT, Pill Checks or Commencement
• Test Results 
• Dressing Changes 
• Dental Problems (please refer to your dentist)
• Sick Certificate 
• Moles and Skin Lesions
• Diarrhoea and Vomiting 
• Viral Illness for less than 5 days (Please see pharmacist) 

Our staff will be happy to help you if you are unsure. Please ask at Reception.

For ongoing health problems, appointments should be made with your Doctor in the usual way.

Practice Nurse appointments are available for routine health checks and other clinics - please speak to the receptionist or call 01202 464500 for further information.

Put simply, patients get the most senior clinician available – their GP – to carry out their triage and make a decision about who the patient needs to see next. This is done over the phone. If an appointment is needed, the GP sorts that out there and then. Or the doctor may be able to provide care by phone, with no need for face-to-face contact. If a nurse appointment is needed, or a hospital appointment for tests, the GP also arranges this on the phone.

This approach is called the Stour Access System and is being promoted through the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement as an example of good practice

In an EMERGENCY call 999.
Emergencies are situations that cannot be managed at home and may be life threatening