From Monday 03 February, we have changed our appointments to a Total Triage system.

This a "Modern General Practice" model to make access to care and treatment easier for patients and improve patient satisfaction. This is a national NHS project, and all general practices must adopt this system by 31st March 2025.

Total Triage means every patient will have to provide some information for the reasons why they are contacting the surgery. Patients will need to click on this link https://shifasurgery.webgp.com/ to submit their request or by completing the form via our website. We appreciate that this may not be possible for some patients. If you are unable or do not have access to the internet, then you can contact the surgery in the usual way and one of our care navigators will complete the form for you over the telephone which will be added to the list for the clinician to review and triage in the same way.

All clinical requests will be triaged by one of our experienced clinicians who will decide what the best course of action is. To help our clinicians prioritise patients who may need more urgent care, where necessary we may need to ask a few more questions.

The triaging clinician will either offer you a Face to Face or Telephone appointment or you may receive a reply with self-care advice or signposted to a more appropriate service.

We understand change can sometimes be difficult, but we are confident that Total Triage will have many benefits including:

Addressing the increasing demand for appointments

• Avoid the frustration of the 8am telephone rush
• Reduce waiting times for appointments
• Make accessing the practice more convenient

Alternatively, you can phone NHS Direct on 111 or visit their website on www.111.nhs.uk.  NHS Direct offers free expert health information and advice 24 hours a day.

Whatever the day or time, if you or someone else experiences severe chest pain, loss of blood or suspected broken bones, go to your nearest accident and emergency department or call 999.

For deaf people and those hard of hearing, a telephone service is available on 0845 606 4647.  

If you are housebound, please phone surgery before 12:00pm to arrange a home visit. Please be prepared to tell the receptionist about your condition so we can appropriately arrange the visits.

The doctor or clinical practitioner will want to speak with you first to see the best cause of action. Home visits are normally carried out after morning surgeries, by a clinician from the surgery or if appropriate, your case may be referred to the Acute Visiting Service where a clinician outside our Practice will come to do the visit.

After 12:00pm requests for home visits will still be taken and assessed but may not be visited on the same day.

Due to the number of tests requested each day, it is impossible to get in touch with every patient, therefore, we would not ring patients back if the results have returned and actioned as normal by the clinician.

If you would like to know your results, please telephone the main switchboard after 1pm.  You could also sign up to our online services where you would be able to access your Health records.

Sometimes, we cannot give full results over the phone. If the result is complicated, or if the doctor wants to see you about the result, the clinician will ring you or reception will ring you to offer you an appointment based on the clinician’s advice.

We will only give results to the person who has had the test unless there is clear consent to disclose to a family member or carer.

On average, please allow 3-5 working days for your test results to come back from the hospital unless your doctor has advised otherwise.

Please see below for average radiology result waiting times.

XRAY:  MSK - 7 TO 10 Days

XRAY:  Chest - 7 TO 10 Days

CT: 5 Weeks

MRI: 7 Wekks

Please note, results coming from other areas do take longer to be received as they are out of our scope meaning we do not share the same digital system and software.