In general, we ask that patients only request a home visit if they are genuinely housebound and too unwell to come to the surgery. If so, your doctor will usually visit after morning surgery.

If you require a home visit, please telephone the surgery before 10.00am and give the receptionist some indication of the problem so that the visiting doctor will know how urgent the visit is. The doctor may ring you to assess the situation further.

Home visiting guidelines to help you decide if a home visit may be appropriate:

GP visit recommended

Home visiting makes clinical sense, and is the best way of giving medical opinion, in cases involving:

• The terminally ill.
• The truly housebound patient for whom travel to premises by car would cause deterioration in their medical condition.

GP visit may be useful

• Following a conversation with a health professional, it may be agreed that a seriously ill patient may be helped by a GP’s visit.

GP visit is not usual

In most of these cases a visit would not be an appropriate use of your GP’s time or best for you:

• Heart attack: severe crushing chest pain. Call 999 for an emergency ambulance.
• Common symptoms of childhood: fevers, cold, cough, earache, headache, diarrhoea /vomiting and most cases of abdominal pain. These patients are usually well enough to travel, to the surgery. It is not harmful to take a child with fever out of doors.
• Adults with common problems, such as cough, sore throat, influenza, general malaise, back pain and abdominal pain are also readily transportable to the doctor’s surgery. Transport arrangements are the responsibility of the patients or their carers.