Enhanced Access

On Monday to Friday 6.30pm – 8.00pm and Saturday 9.00am-17.00, appointments will be available to patients registered with GPS Healthcare.  These will take place at one to two of the GP Practices within the network.  We are working hard so that this additional service will be convenient and accessible.

The proposed venue and timings are:

Monday to Friday the service will run from any of our six sites. On Saturday the service will run from Knowle and one other site between 9.00am- 5.00pm

Appointment types will be a mixture of face to face and remote consultations where the most appropriate member of the primary health care team will be able to assess non-urgent medical conditions that are not resolving on their own and offer management of long-term conditions. 

This will include a mixture of General Practitioners (GP), Practice Nurses, Health Care Assistants (HCA), Social Prescribers, Clinical Pharmacists, First Contact Paramedics and other primary care staff.  There will always be a GP supervising.

Types of appointments that will be offered include:

• Chronic disease reviews
• Diet and lifestyle advice
• Social Prescribing
• Health Checks
• Pill and HRT checks
• Cervical Screening
• Vaccinations
• As well an on the day appointments

Other services we plan to incorporate over time will include Musculoskeletal assessments delivered by a First Contact Practitioner Physiotherapist (FCP) and Long-Acting Reversible Contraception. 

Benefits

By providing these appointments within our local area patients will have additional non-urgent access to more local primary care services than are currently provided.  Additionally, there will be some appointments that are bookable for the same day.

Practices will have options for patients that prefer appointments outside of core hours.  This will hopefully increase availability of appointments within core hours for those who choose this time.