Home visits are available on request for patients who are housebound, terminally ill or too ill to come to the surgery. All requests for home visits will be assessed and it is for the Doctor to decide if a home visit is appropriate. Assessment will be based on medical grounds and you may be visited by the Paramedic team, Community Nursing and Intervention team or the Doctor. Problems with transport are not a valid reason for requesting a home visit.
At home the clinician will only have limited equipment and it is often difficult to perform a full assessment of your symptoms. It is therefore essential that if it is at all possible you should attend the Surgery to see a clinician.
If you need a home visit, it would be helpful if you could call before 10.30am. Your call will be logged, and a doctor may contact you before visiting. The receptionist/clinician may ask set questions about the illness and whether there is any possibility of coming to the surgery for an emergency appointment. The clinician may feel that advice on treatment over the phone would be more appropriate or advise you to attend the Accident and Emergency Department.
Visits are usually distributed geographically, therefore you may not necessarily be visited by your preferred clinician. Please do not abuse this service as it is very time consuming and more patients can be seen by the clinician in the surgery.