Highgate Group Practice > Appointments

Appointments

Urgent appointments

To request an urgent appointment on the day:

  • phone us Monday to Friday during opening hours
  • visit the surgery and speak with a receptionist, Monday to Friday during opening hours

There are duty doctor surgeries in the morning and the evening each day for patients with medical problems which must be seen on the same day. Each appointment is for twelve minutes and is for the immediate problem only and not for requesting results or repeat prescriptions. Morning appointments are released at 8.00am and afternoon appointments are released at 1:00pm.

When you get in touch, we’ll ask what you need help with.

We will use the information you give us to choose the most suitable doctor, nurse or health professional to help you.

Routine appointments

The practice operates an appointment system to see both the doctors and the nurses. Each appointment is 12 minutes long and is for one problem only and one issue. Appointments can be booked with our doctors, nurses and HCA up to 1 week in advance and are released every day at 09:30am.

To request a routine appointment in the next 7 days:

When you get in touch, we’ll ask what you need help with.

We will use the information you give us to choose the most suitable doctor, nurse or health professional to help you.

The doctors do prefer to see their own patients, subject to availability, as they do like to get to know them. We, therefore, encourage you to see the same doctor for the same problem if possible but this cannot occur if is an emergency appointment.

Enhanced access service on evenings and weekends

Our practice is open, for routine appointments only, on Wednesdays from 6:30pm to 8:00pm and one Saturday per month, from 9:00am to 1:00pm.

Enhanced Access Hubs: Appointments are now available for all patients registered at any Haringey practice.

  • Monday to Friday: 6:30pm – 8:30pm
  • Saturday and Sunday: 8:00am to 8:00pm

Contact your surgery (working hours) or call 0330 053 9499 during the above hub opening hours to book an appointment at one of three locations. Please note opening hours will vary between hubs:

  • Bounds Green Group Practice, Gordon Road, London N11 2PF
  • Somerset Gardens Family Health Centre, 4 Creighton Road, London N17 8NW
  • Queenswood Medical Practice, 151 Park Road, London N8 8JD

You can make an appointment if you are registered at any practice in Haringey. You will be able to see a local Haringey GP or healthcare professional. It may be someone from your practice, and if not, it will be another local GP, Practice Nurse or Healthcare Assistant.

If you need help when we are closed

Should you need medical assistance out of hours use NHS 111 online or call the NHS number 111 (When it’s not a 999 emergency).

NHS 111 online is for people aged 5 and over. Call 111 if you need help for a child under 5.

Call 999 in a medical or mental health emergency. This is when someone is seriously ill or injured and their life is at risk.

Non-urgent advice: Emergencies

What is an Emergency?

Whatever the time of day, if you or someone else experiences the symptoms below and you feel it is so serious that it cannot wait, go to the nearest Accident and Emergency Department or call 999.

Symptoms include;

Chest pain

Severe abdominal pain

Vomiting blood

Breathlessness

Non-blanching rashes (the glass test)

Possible anaphylactic shock (swelling of mouth and throat)

Your appointment

However you choose to contact us, we may offer you a consultation:

  • by phone
  • face to face at the surgery
  • by video

Appointments by phone, or video call, can be more flexible and often means you get help sooner.

Remote Consultations

IMPORTANT: Sending images to Highgate Group Practice as part of remote consultations

You may be asked to send images to assist the clinician with making a diagnosis or take part in a video consultation. Our patient services staff have been asked by the clinicians to request images to assist with diagnosis when booking some telephone consultations, eg for a skin rash.

For video consultations, and for most requests for images, we use AccuRx, which is a secure, encrypted platform used throughout the NHS. More information on their patient privacy policy.

You are entitled to a chaperone for video consultations, exactly as you are in face-to-face consultations. Please ask the receptionist when you book, or the clinician at any point in your consultation.

Video consultations are not recorded or stored anywhere. (The only exception to this is if the video consultation is to be used in the doctor’s training, and in this case, your permission will be specifically sought before the consultation starts.)

Any images you send us will be stored securely on your clinical record unless you ask us to remove them. They can be seen only by the staff who have access to your clinical record, all of whom are bound by the same duty of confidentiality as clinicians. We will only store images to assist with your care, and these images can be deleted from your record at any time at your request. If they are sent to the practice by email, they will be deleted from the practice account as soon as they have been transferred to your record. Please send any image as an attachment, rather than embedded in an email, to facilitate this.  They will only be shared with other agencies (eg specialists to aid diagnosis) with your express permission.

By sending us these images you are assumed to consent to their secure storage on your clinical record. If you ask for them to be deleted or would rather not provide images in the first place this will not affect your care.

Please do not send images of intimate areas unless expressly requested to do so by a clinician. We appreciate that there are different perceptions of what constitutes an intimate area and if you are at all concerned please discuss this with the clinician involved.

Children and Young People

Children and young people under the age of 16 who have the capacity and understanding to give consent to the use and storage of images may do so, subject to the discussion above but they are strongly encouraged to involve their parents/carers in decision-making. If a child lacks the capacity to consent a person with parental responsibility may consent on their behalf. If the child develops capacity they can, if they wish, ask for the images to be removed from their record in time.

Please do not send any images of intimate areas of a child to the practice under any circumstances.

Cancelling or changing an appointment

To cancel your appointment:

  • use your NHS account (through the NHS website or NHS App)
  • using the GP online system – Patient Access
  • phone us
  • reply CANCEL to your appointment reminder text message if received one.
  • If you are more than 10 minutes late for an appointment the receptionists will ask the reason and let the doctor know. You may be seen and asked to wait until the end of surgery or to re-book your appointment as requested by your doctor.
  • If you Do Not Attend your appointment 3 times you may be removed from the practice

If you need help with your appointment

Please tell us:

  • if there’s a specific doctor, nurse or other health professional you would prefer to respond and the reason
  • if you would prefer to consult with the doctor or nurse by phone, video or by face-to-face
  • if you need an interpreter – there is a telephone translation service available
  • if you have any other access or communication needs

Home visits

If you are a terminally ill patient or bedbound and need an appointment, we will do a home visit.

The Receptionist will need as much information as possible to help the Doctor prioritize requests. A decision to visit remains at the Doctor’s discretion and is based on medical necessity. These visits are scheduled at the end of the doctor’s shift, which may be in the late afternoon. Please note that a doctor can see at least three patients in the surgery in the time it takes to make a home visit.

To request a home visit, it’s helpful if you phone the practice before 10am unless an emergency arises later in the day.

Help from your pharmacy

Did you know that your local pharmacy can help you with a lot of minor ailments; and a lot of treatments are covered by the Pharmacies.