Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Our clinicians’ diaries are full every single day – not just with patient appointments, but also with dedicated time for administrative tasks, such as referrals, prescriptions, etc. This is why our Reception team cannot simply transfer your call over to a clinician without following our appointment booking guidelines, as we need to correctly reflect how much time is spent on offering appointments and dealing with administrative queries.

If your request for a letter or a proforma is outside. Please visit our private work page for more details on how to make a request.

Each patient request for an appointment with a doctor goes through a triage process, to assess whether the appointment needed is urgent (same-day or next-day) or routine (within two weeks). If you do not tell the receptionist what the appointment is about, fill in any required questionnaires, and offer as many details as possible, this will delay the process of you getting an appointment, as the clinician will not be able to triage it appropriately and advise next steps. All our staff undergo the same training on information governance and confidentiality, and their access to your records has an audit trail, so your information is safe with all our staff.

If you just want a list of your current conditions and medication, or a summary of your recent consultations, this can be provided for free and on the spot by our Reception team – simply drop by our front desk so our staff can check your identity documentation, and ask for a copy of these lists. If what you want instead is a copy of your full medical records, this will be a Subject Access Request, which needs to be submitted to us in writing via this form.

• During the consultation, the doctor will ask you questions to understand your symptoms and determine the best treatment, and may need to perform a physical exam.
• Please be aware that doctors have limited time for their appointments, as their work continues even after your conversation has ended: they need to complete a number of tasks following their consultations, including accurately documenting your discussion on your medical record, issuing prescriptions, requesting tests or investigations, completing referrals, or arranging follow-ups.
• To make the most of your appointment, we would ask that you prepare your answers about your current symptoms as much as you can, and that you are concise, focusing on your most important issues without trying to discuss too many things at once.
• If you don’t understand something, always ask the doctor to repeat it or explain it in another way. You can also ask for words to be written down for you, or request an interpreter if you do not speak English.

To cancel an appointment, patients can just click on the relevant link in the reminder text they receive (1 day, 3 days, and / or 7 days before the appointment, depending on when it was booked) – if they don’t have a mob number or did not receive a text, they need to call 0161 226 7777 to cancel – we would advise they do it as early as possible to give us the best possible opportunity to offer it to someone else! (For the cancel appointment page can we add something in the last section about the financial impact / cost of a DNA? I think the NHS did some analysis of this a few years ago and it can really quantify the issue).

If you would like to book an appointment with a clinician, you can do so online, using our booking system, which is called AccuRx. You can access it here: https://florey.accurx.com/p/P91020.

• The system is open for medical requests from 8am on weekdays, and it closes as soon as we have reached capacity, as we can only safely deal with a certain number of requests per day. The system remains open for non-clinical, admin requests (such as repeat fit notes or prescriptions) until 2pm.
• To ensure continuity of care, which is very important to patients and to us as well, we ask that you list which clinician you would like to see in your request, and express a preference for a telephone of face-to-face appointment, if you have one.
• Any new clinical request that we receive, unless it is regarding a follow-up for an ongoing issue, will undergo a triage process – this is to determine the most suitable service or clinician to take the request forward, and to assess if the appointment that is required is urgent (and will therefore be booked within 2 days) or routine (and will therefore be booked within 2 weeks).
• You can call us on 0161 226 7777 between 08:00 and 18:30 every day, though our team has been advised not to take clinical requests over the phone unless a patient cannot submit them on their own, and they cannot take prescription requests over the phone at all.
• You can also email us on brooksbar.enquiries@nhs.net with any general enquiries, though we would ask that you do not submit clinical information in this way, as the inbox is not monitored routinely for this, and we want to ensure we do not miss any serious appointment requests.
• We have a two-working-day turnaround time for repeat prescription requests, and we have processes in place by which you can make this type of request remotely, either by submitting a request via AccuRx, as above, or by emailing brooksbar.enquiries@nhs.net; you do not need to attend the practice in person unless you want to submit your request on paper. Your prescription will then be sent to your nominated pharmacy electronically. Alternatively, you can ask your nominated pharmacy to request your prescription on your behalf, and they also have procedures in place through which they can contact us regarding your medication. If you would like to request new medication which is not on your repeat dispensing list, then this request will need to be triaged as a new clinical request, and an appointment will be made with an appropriate clinician to discuss.