If you need advice on contraception, please make an appointment with our practice nurse.
Our family planning service offers coil and implant fitting. Please speak to the receptionist team who will be able to advise how to access this service.
Alternatively, you can self refer to Embrace by visiting https://www.embracewolverhampton.nhs.uk/ or calling 01902 444444
Your doctor may refer you for chiropody; you can also refer yourself, please ask the reception for more details.
Priority is given to patients who have diabetes or other significant conditions.
Cervical Screening tests, smears, are carried out by the Practice Nurse or doctor.
There is a recall system in operation through NHS England and repeated every 3 years for patients with a cervix aged 25 – 49 and every 5 years for patients with a cervix aged 50 – 65. However, if you are not called when you think appropriate, please contact the surgery.
For more information please visit www.http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cervical-screening
We are only able to carry out your blood test in surgery if you have been invited for it as part of a review. Other blood tests are carried out in community phlebotomy clinics.
Please use the link below if you have been asked to have a blood test. The phlebotomy team are unable to carry this out if you have not spoken to a clinician first.
Phlebotomy (royalwolverhampton.nhs.uk)https://www.royalwolverhampton.nhs.uk/services/service-directory-a-z/phlebotomy/
These clinics are run by our Health Care Assistants, General Practice Assistants and Clinical Pharmacists to monitor patients who have blood pressure problems.
Clinical Pharmacists can also help to review and advise on medication.
Our nurse practitioner or practice nurses regularly monitor patients and alter their treatments to suit individual needs, therefore, helping to reduce the number of attacks and hospital admissions.
Patients will be routinely invited for regular checks and monitoring.
Specialist nurses and pharmacists can help with advice on medication and inhalers available and techniques on how to use them.
Antenatal patients are routinely seen at regular intervals by a midwife throughout their pregnancy.
Clinics are held at Prestbury Medical Practice with the midwives attached to the surgery.
If you think you are pregnant and have not yet registered with a midwife, you can now self refer. Please use the link below
www.badgernotes.net/SelfReferral/CareLocation/newcrosswolverhampton
Chest pain, shortness of breath and loss of consciousness are emergencies please dial 999 for these symptoms
Requests for visits must be made before 10.30am and at the latest 12noon. Please only request home visits if you are incapable of attending the surgery.
Patients who are able to leave home for other reasons would be expected to attend the surgery for appointments.
If a patient is encouraged to come into the surgery, it is often on the basis that this is where the best care can be provided. Completing home visits is also more time consuming for our GPs.
Whenever possible, try and come into the surgery as facilities here are far better for examination and treatment. It helps us to judge the urgency of the call if you describe the symptoms. The receptionists are trained to deal with your call so do expect to be asked. All information is confidential. The doctor may telephone prior to, or instead of, visiting. Visits requested later in the day that are for the housebound, but are not urgent, will not be seen that day. Ring early if you wish for a routine call if you are housebound.
Sick children will always be seen as soon as possible if brought into the surgery; it is not appropriate to wait for a visit. We rarely visit children at home as a responsible adult should be available to bring them to the surgery.
In most instances patients can travel, especially children (it is not harmful to wrap up a child with a fever and bring them to the surgery).
Some services provided are not covered under our contract with the NHS and therefore attract charges.
Examples include the following:
The fees charged are based on the British Medical Association (BMA) suggested scales and our reception staff will be happy to advise you about them along with appointment availability.
We recommend that any request reports are allowed 28 days for processing. This time starts when the report has been paid for in advance. The reception or admin team will be able to advise on these charges.
When your doctor is asked to give medical information about you in the form of a report, letter or certificate, the request kick starts a series of processes.
This takes time and is not always straightforward or simple to complete. Some of the information is not available easily and will mean the doctor has to sort and select the right information for the request.
The doctor also must establish who is funding this work and if it is not part of their NHS work, agree a fee for this.
Many patients see their doctor as the embodiment of the NHS and all that it provides – free care at the point of delivery. However not all work doctors are asked to do is paid for by the NHS and many GPs are self-employed.
This means they must cover their time and costs – staff, buildings, heating, lighting, etc – in the same way as any small business. The NHS only pays for NHS work, any work outside of the NHS must be funded by other means and this is why fees are charged.
Your doctor receives large amounts of request and which is often to do with whether your general health allows you to do something e.g. to work, receive benefits, drive, play sport, attend school, own a house, a firearm or it is for insurance, court or other medico-legal reasons.
All requests will vary in complexity, volume and consistency ranging from signing a certificate which can take minutes, to an in-depth report with an examination that can take hours.
When your doctor signs a certificate or completes a report, it is a condition of remaining on the Medical Register that they only sign what they know to be true.
In order to complete even the simplest of forms, they may have to check your entire medical record (some of which may not be accessible on a computer or on site).
Carelessness or an inaccurate report can have serious consequences for the doctor with the General Medical Council (the doctors’ regulatory body) or even the Police.
Your doctor is inundated with work. They have to balance their time with treating the sick, keeping their practice afloat and making sure they are doing all of this safely and within their professional duties as a doctor.
With certain exceptions written within their contract, doctors do not have to carry out non-NHS work. However, many choose to for the benefit of you and other families they treat.
Where a doctor chooses to undertake the work, we advise them to inform and always agree a fee in advance of undertaking work.
Should their volume of work prove to be greater or more complex than expected, the doctor will contact you to discuss how to proceed.
– Not all documents need a signature by a doctor and can be done by other professionals. Please check the form and accompanying guidance as you may get a quicker response that way.
– If you have several forms requiring completion, present them all at once and ask your doctor if he or she is prepared to complete them at the same time to speed up the process.
– Do not expect your GP to process forms overnight. Urgent requests may mean that a doctor has to make special arrangements to process the form quickly, and this will cost more.
– Don’t book an appointment with your doctor to complete forms without checking with your doctor’s administrative staff as to whether you need to or not.
When you attend a test of any kind, you will be told how long you should expect to wait for the results. This is a guideline, and we ask that you wait this time before checking for your results.
Please note that we have a strict policy regarding confidentiality and data protection. We will only give test results to the person they relate to unless that person has given prior permission for their release or if they’re not capable of understanding them.
There are different ways you can access the results of tests that have been done at our GP surgery:
Please note that the results of tests carried out during hospital visits are not normally sent to the practice.
Some tests take longer to return to the practice than others.
Please allow the following time to ensure all of your results are likely to be back:
If a doctor asks you to have a repeat test, it is usually because:
Please do not worry if the doctor has asked you for a repeat test. The doctor will speak to you or request to see you directly if they need to discuss the results.
Sometimes patients have investigations that have been arranged by hospital consultants. The results from these tests do not automatically get forwarded onto GPs.
If you want to know the result of a test you have had under the care of a consultant you can phone the hospital and ask to speak to your consultant’s secretary.
They are often able to get permission to forward the results onto the practice so that we can let you know the results. If you give them a couple of days to do this, then ring the practice we can discuss the results with you over the phone.
We do have a strict policy regarding confidentiality and data protection. In this respect we will only give out results to the person they relate to unless that person has given prior permission for their release or if they are not capable of understanding them.
