How To Request An Appointment

Before requesting an appointment with one of our clinicians, it may be worth looking at our self-referrals page to check if a surgery appointment is needed for the service you require.

Appointments can be made via:

• Visiting our Consulting Room
• Booking an appointment via Patient Access
• Calling the practice on 0121 550 4917

Online Service

If you would like to register for this free service please complete our Register for Online Services form. For more information about Patient Access, please visit our Patient Access page.

Our Appointment System

Halesowen Medical Practice is open from 08:00 to 18:30, Monday to Friday except on Bank and Public Holidays.

All consultations are by appointment only. Please arrive well in advance of your appointment time as if you are late, the doctor may decline to see you.

All appointments are released at 08:00 regardless of the method of booking in order to ensure access is fair this includes telephone, online and booking appointments at the reception desk from 08:00.

Same Day Appointments

Patients requesting emergency or same day appointments with a GP will no longer be automatically offered an appointment time or advised to attend a clinic at the end of morning surgery.

In order to ensure that our GP clinical time is used effectively, all requests for same day appointments will be added to a triage list for a clinician (either a doctor or our advanced nurse practitioner) to review. Patients will be contacted by telephone and their acute problem will be assessed by the clinician.

The clinician will then advise on the best course of action or book the patient an appropriate appointment.

If a same day appointment is required we would ask patients to provide some information relating to the reason for the request in order to assist the clinician to assess the problem. Please be assured that the receptionist/patient services team will not undertake any clinical assessment based on the reason given. Any information provided is to increase the efficiency of the service.

Book Ahead Appointments

By making the changes above it will mean that we can offer increased capacity for book ahead appointments. Patients will be able to request an appointment with a GP two days ahead and the remainder of the appointments will be available to book up to a month ahead.

Telephone Consultations

The practice continues to offer GP telephone consultations. Telephone consultations are ideal for advice on test results and follow up appointments. Many patients have found telephone appointments convenient particularly those who work during the day and are not able to come to the surgery. It also saves the need to try and find a parking space.

You may be offered a telephone appointment by your GP or one of the team. If you do not need to be examined and you feel that your problem could be dealt with over the telephone then please request a telephone appointment.

If you are due a Telephone Consultation, patients should be aware that it might be from a withheld number and to ensure their phones will accept calls from withheld numbers.

Cancelling an appointment

If you are unable to keep your appointment, please give us as much notice as possible so that your appointment can be offered to someone else.

If you are cancelling please use our online Cancel an Appointment triage or telephone us on 0121 550 4917 as soon as possible, and at least 30 minutes before your appointment time. This will enable us to offer your appointment to someone else.

Patients who have opted into the text-messaging appointment reminder service are also able to cancel their appointments by replying to the text message.

Cancellations notified less than 30 minutes before the appointment time will be recorded as failure to attend (DNA).

Repeated failure to attend booked appointments is a significant waste of NHS resources and may lead to your registration being removed from our list.