Patients are expected to arrive in good time for their appointments.
If patients arrive more than 1 minute late, they have missed their appointment and will need to rebook. This is to prevent delays to the GP sessions and to ensure fairness for patients who have arrived on time.
We appreciate the effort our patients make to attend on time and therefore do our best to run as close to booked appointment times as possible. Adhering to a Late Patient Policy assists us in doing so. However, due to the nature of a GP surgery, sometimes the doctor or nurse may be running behind. When the clinician is running late our reception staff will advise the patients upon arrival and apologise to them for the delay.
If late, patients will have to rebook as clinicians need the full allocated time to provide safe, high quality care. It is at the discretion of the clinician if they can see the patient depending on non-attendances and urgent clinical matters.