Information about our appointments system and how to book.
Castle Mead Medical Centre and Pine Close Surgery we currently provide a range of different on the day and pre-bookable, face to face or Telephone options for our patients to access appointments in the surgery.
Appointments can be booked either by calling reception on 0145563765 or 01455212526. As well as by phone patient can also book through our on-line services provision or the NHS app.
When you call in reception will ask you several questions so they can Signpost you to the correct clinician. This is called Active Signposting and is an essential part of their role.
N/B - If you require an Emergency appointment, please contact us by phone so reception can signpost you to an appropriate
Telephone Consultations
When you call in the reception team, as a default, will book a face to face appointment with a member of the clinical team however you can choose to have a phone call if you wish. The majority of issues you present with can be deal with over the phone however reception will provide advice if they feel it is more appropriate for you to come to the surgery for an examination and they will book you in.
2023 Appointment Stats:
As we start 2024 we thought we would share with you some of the phenomenal work we have been doing throughout 2024.
We currently have a record number of patients registered with us: 10704 up from 10550 in 2022 and 9800 in 2016
In 2023 the total number of appts we provided were 61,111
51,996 (85%) of those we’re face to face. The national average is 70%.
30,992 (50%) of those appointments were on the same day.
Only 11% of our appointments were via telephone with the national average being 26%.
Unfortunately, there were 2085 DNA's (Did not attends) coded that year. That averages out at 174 appointment a month that could have gone to someone else.
OUR PHONE SYSTEM:
On Friday August 19th 2022 both of our sites in Hinckley and Stoke Golding had a state of the art new phone system installed to increase access for patients. The system has vastly improve the service we provide for our patients and below are some of the features the system includes:
# Unlimited Inbound Calls so no more engaged tones for patients
# Queue Position Indicator for all patients
# Patient Call-back feature to help reduced patient stress when calling - This will only work for patients with a recognised number in our system and who aren't ex-directory.
# Easily amended Announcements informing patients of new services or emergency situations.
# Call Recording - Meaning all calls are auditable and available for training and quality purposes.
The system also integrates with our clinical system which enables us to work so much faster.
We are developing a culture where we want to improve things all the time, we ask that you let us know if there is any feedback on the new system or how we use it.