Home Visits

We reserve home visits for patients who are terminally ill or truly medically housebound.

Please make home visit requests before 11.00am to help doctors and practitioners plan each day.

We will ask you for brief details of your problem to assess urgency, your address and phone number. The doctor may contact you to obtain further details, give advice, arrange to see you at the surgery or agree to a home visit.

In certain emergency situations it may be clinically more appropriate to call a emergency ambulance eg. unconsciousness, chest pain, stroke, shortness of breath, or suspected sepsis. 

• It can delay clinical assessment as visiting cannot be carried out on an emergency basis. Assessing patients in the surgery can be done immediately.
• Travelling to and from home visits when not clinically needed puts the care of patients in the surgery attending an appointment at risk – whilst away from the surgery the absent doctor will not be able to treat routine or emergency patients, nor will they be able to give advice to the other clinicians who they may be supervising.
• Equipment for assessment and treatment which is portable to a patient’s home is not as effective as the equipment in the surgery.
• The environment in a patient’s home is not ideal for clinical examination and assessment.

• Transport issues – the Practice is not responsible for arranging transport or to perform home visits because the patient has difficulty arranging transport. In these circumstances patients should seek transport help from relatives, friends or taxi firms.
• Childcare issues – if a patient has difficulty arranging for someone to care for their children whilst attending appointments, patients are welcome to bring their children to the surgery.
• Poor mobility – whilst it is understood that having poor mobility is inconvenient and unpleasant, GP surgeries are designed to cater for patients with restricted mobility. If patients are able to attend appointments at other healthcare settings, then they should also be able to attend appointments in GP surgeries.