Home Visits

If possible please try to telephone reception before 10:30 if you require a home visit.

Home visits are reserved for patients who are housebound and who cannot leave the house for any reason. Including those in residential and nursing homes.

We will visit only if the patient’s clinical condition prevents them from travelling to the surgery and they are deemed to have a medical condition that necessitates an urgent medical opinion.

Age is not a criteria; the criteria applies to all ages.

Home visits will not be undertaken for social / transport reasons.

The clinician may refuse to visit the patient and offer an urgent appointment at the surgery if they feel this is more appropriate.

Guidelines

GP is likely to visit for these conditions:

GP home visiting makes clinical sense and is the best way of giving a medical opinion in cases involving:
– The terminally ill
– The genuinely bed-bound patient, for whom travel to premises by car would cause deterioration to their medical condition or unacceptable discomfort.

GP MAY visit for these conditions:

– Those who are not usually bed-bound but have a clinical condition that prevents them from being ambulatory.

GP will NOT usually visit for these conditions and circumstances and it is expected that the patient will attend the surgery to be seen.

– 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 by car. It is not harmful to take a child with a fever outside. These children may not be fit to travel by bus or walk, but car transport is available from friends, relatives or taxi firms.

– Adults with common problems, such as a cough, sore throat, influenza, back pain and abdominal pain, are also readily transportable by car to the surgery premises.

– Common problems in the elderly, such as poor mobility, joint pain and general malaise, would also best be treated by consultation at the surgery premises where the facilities are available for full examination and investigations. The exception to this would be the truly bed-bound patient.

Please Note

– The practice is not responsible for arranging transport to the surgery.

– We will not visit for convenience.

– Wherever possible patients requiring a consultation with a GP will be asked to attend the surgery.

– The surgery has the correct facilities for undertaking examinations.

– In the surgery the GP undertaking the consultation has access to the full clinical record and access to support services such as Practice Nurses and therefore a consultation at the practice is better quality with regard to governance issues.

– Home visits are not an efficient or effective use of pressurised GP time.

– If you request a home visit, you may initially receive a telephone consultation from the Doctor or Emergency Care Practitioner, who will discuss your symptoms with you. You may be asked to attend the surgery as a result of this consultation if clinically appropriate. The Doctor will decide on the most suitable place and time for your condition to be assessed.

– You can be visited at home by a community nurse if you are referred by your GP. You should also be visited at home by a health visitor if you have recently had a baby or if you are newly registered with a GP and have a child under five years.