Your Appointment

On occasion, patients attending appointments may be running late, or miss their appointment altogther. This policy provides direction for the management of patients who fail to attend appointments on time.

Patients must make every effort to attend appointments on time and should contact the Practice as soon as possible if they will be late for any reason, or are unable to attend.

Please ensure you check in with our Reception team when you arrive, otherwise you will have to rearrange your appointment.

If you are less than 10 minutes late when you let us know you have arrived, we will ask the clinician you are seeing if they have capacity to see you as planned. It is entirely up to them if they will agree to see you. If they are unable to consult with you, your appointment will be rearranged.

If you are more than 10 minutes late when you let us know you have arrived, you will have to rearrange your appointment.

The Practice is fully committed to running to schedule and, should this not be the case, patients will be advised at the earliest opportunity as to the reasons why and the expected duration of the delay.  Reasons for delay may be, but are not limited to:

• Medical emergencies
• Complex routine appointments overrunning
• Delay in staff arriving due to external factors beyond their control

If you cannot wait to be seen after your appointment time, please let us know and we will rearrange your appointment.

Should you fail to attend your appointment, this will be recorded on your medical record. You may be sent a warning letter regarding your missed appointment.

Should you fail to attend your appointment on more than two occassions in a 12-month period, we will take steps to remove your from our Practice list.

We are happy to remind you of your appointment by text message. Just let us know and we can set this up for you.