Appointments

Bridge Medical Centre operates Advanced Access in conjunction with West Sussex PCT Crawley Locality and DOH guidelines.

Consultations with members of our Health Care Team are by appointment only (including telephone) and can be made in person at the surgery or by telephoning the surgery during opening hours.

We offer pre-bookable appointments up to two weeks in advance, including telephone consultations. We will try and book you with your preferred member of the team wherever possible.

Our reception team will ask for an idea of the problem. This is to enable them to direct you to the most appropriate member of the healthcare team, who will be able to help you.

We also offer urgent same-day appointments and to enable us to offer appointments within 24 hours, ALL on-the-day appointment requests are initially dealt with by a telephone triage appointment. This will be carried out by one of the triage team, who will be a Doctor or Nurse. (find out more about our triage system here). 

If you would like a particular Dr or Nurse, please advise and we will try and accomodate your request, however for urgent appointments that may not be possible.

Please note that members of the Triage team will only try and ring you once or twice for a triage call, it is your responsibility to make sure you are free to take the call back.

Please do not ask for an urgent appointment unless it is really necessary.

If for any reason you are unable to attend an appointment please cancel your appointment so it can be made available to others.

Bridge Medical Centre Triage

In an effort to deal with high volume of appointment requests we have introduced a triage system to ensure that you can be seen by the most appropriate healthcare professional. If you are requesting a same day appointment please phone 01293 526025 where you will be referred to the Triage Nurse/Doctor.

For general advice on matters of health please ring NHS Direct on 24 hour helpline on 0845 4647 If you come to the surgery requesting a same day appointment, details will be taken and you will be asked to return home and wait at home for a telephone call from the Triage Nurse/Doctor.

What is Triage?

Triage means sorting. It is a way in which we can deal with our patients who request a same day appointment.

When you call the surgery a member of our reception team will need to ask you for a brief outline of your problem. From this she will be able to either pre-book a non urgent appointment for a later date, or she will take your telephone details so that a doctor or fully qualified triage nurse can call you back. The doctor/nurse will assess your health needs and direct you to the most appropriate health professional such as a doctor, pharmacist, health visitor or even self help. You may not always need to see a doctor, or the doctor may be able to help you over the phone. In the event that you need to be seen then the triage nurse/doctor will allocate one of the ‘on the day appointments’, or if your problem is more routine or on-going you will be offered one of our pre-bookable slots.

Please be assured that the triage nurse/doctor on duty will not be acting as an obstacle—simply as a channel between the patient and the doctor.

Our triage nurse/doctor will attempt to phone you on the given contact number once. If there is no reply your details will be filed. The doctor/triage nurse cannot leave messages on answer phones owing to patient confidentiality issues.

Home Visits

 Home Visits are for those who are too ill on the day to visit the surgery or for those patients with predetermined medical needs making a home visit a necessity.

Please telephone the surgery before 11.30am to request a home visit.

The administration team will ask you to provide the full name, address, telephone number and some details about the nature of your call. The Duty Doctor may contact you for further assessment prior to the home visit .

When you cannot attend

If you are unable to attend your appointment please let us know, we unfortunately still seem to have a large number of missed appointments by patients.

If you do not attend (DNA), please note you are very likely to receive a telephone call from one of our administrators, they will ring and let you know the Doctor or Nurse or HCA is sitting and waiting for you. Persistent DNA patients will be monitored and reviewed on a quarterly basis, this could result in you being asked to register at another practice.