Home Visiting Guidelines

In order to ensure the best use is made of your GP services, please attend the surgery whenever possible. If you need advice, you can contact NHS Direct on 0845 4647.

1. GP visit recommended

Home visiting makes clinical sense and is the best way of giving a medical opinion, in cases involving :

• The terminally ill.
• The truly housebound patients for whom travel to premises by car would cause deterioration in their medical condition.

2. GP visit may be useful

• Following a conversation with a health professional, it may be agreed that a seriously ill patient may be helped by a GP visit.

3. GP visit is not usual

In most of these cases a visit would not be appropriate use of your GP’s time or best for you:

• Heart Attack – severe crushing chest pain. The best approach is to call an emergency paramedic ambulance.
• Common symptoms of childhood, fevers, colds, cough, earache, headache, diarrhea/vomiting and most cases of abdominal pain. These patients are usually well enough to travel to the surgery. It is not harmful to take a child with fever outside.
• Adults with common problems, such as cough, sore throat, influenza, general malaise, back pain, abdominal pain are also readily transportable to the doctors surgery. Transport arrangements are the responsibility of the patients or their carers.

All requests for visits will initally be by return of a telephone call from one of our nurse practitioners to discuss the need for a visit, prior to the visit request being accepted.