I want to book a routine appointment:

• Please telephone the surgery; we no longer accept bookings face to face to ensure equity when booking appointments.
• The busiest time is between 08.30 – 09.30, please do not call at this time unless you need to be seen urgently.
• You will be asked the reason for your call to enable signposting by our trained reception team.
• Signposting by the reception team means they will advise who is with the most appropriate clinician who can deal with your query.
• You may be offered a telephone appointment rather than a face to face appointment if this is appropriate.
• You will be offered an appointment at any of our three branches (our man site is at Port Isaac). We are the Port Isaac Practice, Wadebridge and St Kew are branch sites.
• You may have to wait to see the clinician or site of your choice or call back at a later date if no appointments are currently released.
• We release appointments up to two weeks in advance and at periods throughout the day, we also have telephone appointments available if you do not need to be seen face to face.
• We don’t release appointments more than two weeks in advance as experience has shown that doing so leads to many more missed appointments.

What if I do not wish to share brief details of my problem with the Receptionist?

Any information provided to our reception team is confidential but we understand that some patients may not wish to share even the briefest details; this will not prevent you from accessing care.

The reason we ask for brief details is to assist the receptionist/person triaging in identifying any calls that may need to take priority, for example a small child with a fever and a rash that could potentially be meningitis as opposed to an adult with flu like symptoms.

I want my test results/I have an admin query:

• Please call after 10:00 we are busy booking appointments before this time and cannot deal with your query.
• If you call before 10:00 you will be asked to call back after 10:00 as it is imperative we are available to book appointments for patients who urgently require them.

I have an urgent medical problem:

• You will be asked the reason for your call to enable signposting by our trained reception team.
• Signposting by the reception team means they will suggest the most appropriate clinician who can deal with your query.
• If appropriate our reception team will book you a triage appointment and you will receive a telephone call.
• Your call may be redirected back to reception to book a routine appointment if your problem is not assessed to be urgent.
• Our telephones are very busy between 08.30-09.30, please be patient with the receptionists. We operate a Zero Tolerance Policy.

I cannot travel to another site:

This will limit the appointments we are able to offer you, therefore you may have to wait longer or have to call back to access an appointment.