Doctor Triage at Leatside

We have for a while now been triaging all calls where someone wants an appointment that day.
This means that rather than have a receptionist just book an appointment when the patient asks, instead, having the doctor ring them back to quickly discuss the problem and deal with it in the most appropriate manner. That may of course mean booking an appointment, but could just as well lead to a home visit, an appointment for a blood test, dealing with it on the phone. We have called 999 ambulances on the basis of these phone calls!
This is really in response to there always been more call for appointments than we have appointments to offer. a while back it became clear, when we had started consulting on the telephone more, that many problems could be sorted out purely based on the story of what had been going on. Hence, no need to actually see the patient.
So, out of the many people who ring asking for an appointment the same day we are now able to deal with a lot of those things quite quickly (and efficiently) on the phone now. This means the appointments are more available for those who really do need to be seen.
So why do we have either appointments "today" or about a week away?
Basically, its because they get booked up.
We did experiment a while back with appointments that automatically freed themselves up 1, 2 and 3 days hence to allow a rolling release of appointments for those who didn't necessarily need to be seen today, but then a week off was too long. It didn't really work. In the end our best compromise has more to do with our attitude to appointments actually. The "duty" doctor used just to see only urgent cases on the same day. Now we will see anyone, for whatever reason, if they wish to be seen today.
As always, the message is, if it is a routine appointment for a check-up or whatever then book ahead.
If you need to be seen the same day then let us know and you will be seen.