08.30-10.00
Morning surgeries are currently open to anyone who turns up before 10.00am. All other surgeries are by appointment. While the doctors largely run to time, occasionally events may conspire to delay them and apologies will be made accordingly.
Emergencies during appointment surgeries.
During the booked surgeries, emergencies will be seen when there is a cancellation or the doctor is ahead of time. Consideration will, of course, be given to the severity of the emergency. Emergencies will be first seen by Sister Ashfield who will determine whether they need to be seen by a doctor.
Home Visits.
The doctors will visit you at home if your condition prevents you from coming to the surgery. We ask that you ring before 10.30am, giving the reception staff as much detail of the illness as possible. If you do not feel able to give details then please arrange to speak to the nurse or one of the doctors when they have finished morning surgery. If the doctor does not feel that the condition merits a visit, or that the patient should be seen more quickly, then they may arrange for the patient to be seen in the surgery. We have side rooms available if you are worried about passing on infection or you are feeling too ill to sit in the waiting room. Home visits can take up considerable time and we feel that our surgery system is flexible enough to accommodate most situations.
We are fortunate in having two nurses at the surgery and they have developed a range of clinics and activities to help patients. They hold open clinics during the surgery times and appointment clinics during the afternoon.
They run the following clinics:
- Chronic Obstructive Airways Disease follow-up
- Travel Clinic: Tuesday 5-6pm by appointment.
Nurse's Assistant.
We have innovated in training a member of staff to take blood and to become a Nurse's Assistant. She is able to take blood, blood pressures, test urine and perform ECGs. While she can cope with the load, it is almost always preferable to have blood tests in the hospital pathology laboratory, a short drive from the surgery.
The community Chiropodist holds weekly clinics at the surgery and will take referrals from the primary care team. The chiropodist is responsible for arranging and maintaining the appointment book. Some of the chiropody sessions are held in the Smithy Road Clinic by arrangement due to lack of space and the number of clinics that we currently run.
Dietician.
The dietician holds clinics at the surgery twice a month and will take referrals from the primary care team. She is involved in advising relevant to conditions, e.g. diabetes or high cholesterol. She will also counsel about general dietary problems, e.g. weight gain.
Counsellor.
The Counsellor takes referrals from the doctors and has flexible session times. These are strictly by appointment.
Physiotherapist.
The physiotherapist holds clinics at the Smithy Road clinic on our behalf and takes referrals from the doctors, hospital doctors and the hospital physiotherapy department. These clinics are by appointment-only.
The surgery uses an advance computer system to track and print repeat prescriptions. This increases the accuracy but we would be keen to hear of any errors on our part. Audits of the prescriptions have shown that written requests are far more accurate and result in far fewer errors than telephoned ones. We would, therefore, much prefer requests to be written or the counterfoil ticked off and delivered to the surgery. The telephone may also be very busy during the mornings. Please ring the surgery before 10.30 if you require your script that day. They will be available AFTER 2.00pm. Prescriptions will only be issued to a responsible adult.
Should you wish your prescription collected by the chemists, please make arrangements with them to do so.
Insurance, HGV, PCV and Taxi Medicals
Dr. Dyfrig is happy to do these medicals BY APPOINTMENT. There is no direct charge for Insurance medicals but the others are currently charged at £55 for our patients and £65 for non-patients. Please contact us by phone or by sending an e-mail to the webmaster.