Appointments

Appointments

Use the links below to find out how to easily book, change, or cancel a GP appointment.

Emergencies

Booking an Appointment

If you need to see your GP or another health professional, then you can book an appointment online, by calling us or visiting the surgery. Our appointments are usually booked at 10-minute intervals.

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

  • By phone 01799 525325
  • Face to face at the surgery
  • By text or Email

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

Before booking an appointment at the GP surgery, you may want to consider alternative options.  Pharmacists can offer advice on a range of illnesses, such as coughs, colds, sore throats, ear infections and aches and pains.

Most pharmacies can offer prescription medicine for some conditions, without you needing to see a GP or make an appointment. This is called Pharmacy First.

For minor eye conditions, your local optometrist (also commonly called an optician) may be able to help. The Minor Eye Conditions Service (MECS) is an NHS service that provides assessment and treatment for people with recently occurring minor eye problems.

Urgent Appointments

If your problem is urgent, you will be offered an appointment or a telephone call to assess the problem on the same day but this may not always be with the doctor of your choice.

To request an urgent appointment for today or tomorrow (Monday to Friday):

  • By Phone
    Contact us on 01799 525325 as soon after 8am as possible.
  • In Person
    Visit the surgery and speak with a receptionist, Monday to Friday 8am to 6.30pm.
  • Go online
    From 6am for on the day appointment Patient Access

Routine Appointments

Patients may book an appointment up to approximately four weeks ahead.

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.

Appointments for surgeries on days immediately after a Bank Holiday are all ‘book on the day’ only. All other surgeries are usually a mixture of “Book on Day” and pre-bookable appointments.

Non-urgent advice: Please be aware

all our reception and administrative staff are bound by the same strict rules on patient confidentiality as our nurses and doctors.
When contacting us please tell us as much as you can about what’s wrong so that our Care Navigation trained receptionists can direct you to the healthcare professional best suited for your needs. This might be a GP, nurse or another specialist such as a physiotherapist, pharmacist or paramedic. The information you provide will also help us to prioritise your care. Our priority will be to ensure you receive care quickly and might offer you an telephone, video or face-to-face appointment, arrange a home visit or refer you to another service.

Please note our reception and other staff are subject to the same strict rules on privacy and patient confidentiality as our GPs and Nurses.

The service is only available for adults over the age of 18 and anything you share will be kept strictly confidential. Our reception staff are subject to the same confidentiality rules as our clinical staff.

Reception staff will never offer clinical advice. Instead, this new way of working is about offering you choice to see the most appropriate professionals in your local practice team or even somewhere else. It will often be quicker and mean you may not need to wait to see a GP at all.

By working this way, it helps to free-up time for GPs to care for patients with the most complex or serious health conditions that can only be managed by a doctor. More importantly though, it means you are seen first by the Clinician that is best placed to help with your health needs. The choice is always yours. It is completely up to you if you want to share information with the practice reception team, but we hope you will.

If you need non-emergency medical advice when the surgery is closed please visit www.111.nhs.uk. If you don’t have access to the internet phone 111 (free call from mobiles and landlines). Please dial 999 if you have a medical emergency.

If you are contacting the surgery about a child, you may want to consult the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) “traffic light” system for identifying risk of serious illness in children in the “Emergencies” section.

More Information

Your appointment

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

  • By phone
  • Face to face at the surgery
  • On a video call
  • By text or email

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

Please telephone the surgery and leave a message with our receptionists for the doctor or nurse to return your call. Please leave details of your name, the patient’s name (if different), telephone number and the reason for the call. Your message will be responded to in accordance with clinical priority.

Cancelling or changing an appointment

To cancel your appointment If you cannot keep your appointment, please inform us as soon as possible as we may be able to offer the slot to another patient. If you receive a text message reminder of your appointment, you can cancel by sending a text simply saying cancel to the number given in the message.

The cancellation will be handled automatically by the computer system and the appointment will then be available for another patient.

  • Use your NHS account (through the NHS website or NHS App)
  • Using the GP online system – Patient access
  • Phone us on 01799 525325 , Monday to Friday from 8am to 6.30pm
  • Reply CANCEL to your appointment reminder text message

If you need help when we are closed

If you need medical help now, use NHS 111 online or call 111.
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.

Have you served in the armed forces?

If you haven’t told us you served in the armed forces, make sure to let a member of the practice team know when you next speak to them.

This is important because it may be relevant to your health and care, now or in the future. It does not matter how long you served for or when you left the armed services.

This will help us to better understand your health, including any health problems related to your service. It will also help make sure you’re referred to dedicated services for veterans, where appropriate. These services include Op COURAGE: The Veterans Mental Health and Wellbeing Service, and Op RESTORE: The Veterans Physical Health and Wellbeing Service.

Help us to help you

Please tell us:

  • If there’s a specific doctor, nurse or other health professional you would prefer to respond.
  • If you would prefer to consult with the doctor or nurse by phone, face-to-face, by video call or by text or email.
  • If you change your address, telephone number or e-mail address.
  • If you need an interpreter If you need a chaperone.
  • If you are a carer If you are a veteran, service leaver, or non-mobilised reservists.
  • If you have any access or communication needs.

Our text messaging service

We operate a text messaging service which allows you, or a nominated person, to receive confirmation and reminders about your appointments. Please remember to update your contact details with us when you change your address, telephone number or e-mail address.

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
  • if you would prefer to consult with the doctor or nurse by phone, face-to-face, by video call or by text or email
  • if you need an interpreter
  • if you have any other access or communication needs

Home visits

Patients are requested to telephone before 10.30am if a home visit is needed that day. Only Emergency visits can be arranged after that time. Please give the receptionist as much information as possible to enable the doctors to allocate priority to house calls. (Remember that several patients can be seen at the surgery in the time that it takes to do a single home visit.) Home visits are for housebound patients and those genuinely too ill to travel to the surgery, and a doctor will usually wish to speak to you by phone before making a visit.

In conjunction with other GP surgeries in north-west Essex and North Uttlesford Primary Care Network, Gold Street Surgery has commissioned an Emergency Care Practitioner, Vicky Bryning (f) to carry out some home visits. An Emergency Care Practitioner (ECP) is a fully trained and experienced senior Paramedic who has also undertaken specific additional training to extend their clinical assessment and treatment skills. Using an ECP, working closely with surgery GPs, means that more home visits can carried out, earlier in the day, leading to earlier treatment or referral to hospital or other health services where needed. The ECP project is being funded by Hertfordshire and West Essex Clinical Integrated Care Board as part of a series of initiatives aimed at improving health care across West Essex.

Chaperones

If you would like a chaperone to be present during your consultation with a doctor or any other health professional you may be consulting at the surgery ( or if you would prefer to be examined by a doctor of the same sex as yourself) please let us know and we will do our best to comply with your wishes.  In certain circumstances, to avoid any misunderstanding, your doctor may wish to have a chaperone present during your consultation.