Hoyland Medical Practice
The Hoyland Centre, High Croft, Hoyland, Barnsley, S74 9AF
Telephone: 01226 355800
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Fair Usage Policy
Our team is here to help and we will ensure that we provide you, our patient, with the highest quality of care and service. We will never deny you access to our services, but unfortunately our services are limited and once there are no appointments left on a particular day, our reception team may need to signpost you to alternative service providers or find an appointment for you on a different day.
As we cater to an ever-growing local population (currently around 12,500 registered patients) but continue to experience a diminishing workforce locally and nationwide, there are fewer doctors looking after greater numbers of patients (https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/pressures/pressures-in-general-practice-data-analysis)
This will inevitably make it increasingly difficult for our patients to book an appointment with a clinician at the time of their choosing and as often as they might want or need one. In order to make the appointments system equitable for all of our patients, we periodically audit our systems to ensure that appointments are being used in the correct and most appropriate way. This includes ensuring that the correct type of ailment is addressed by the correct healthcare professional (e.g. our receptionists signposting to the pharmacy for minor ailments that do not need a GP’s input – something known as ‘care navigation), but also implementing a ‘Fair Usage Policy’ to maintain an equal degree of access to appointments to all patients.
We understand that different patients have different healthcare needs, and at times their health may decline such that they will require more intense input from the surgery for a limited time during that decline in health. However, we may consider that you are excessively using our services by:
- booking more appointments per year than is deemed reasonable when compared to traditional general practice and the ‘average’ number booked by other patients, particularly those with the same or similar disease patterns (note: we are fully aware that every patient is an individual and their needs cannot be directly compared with those of another)
- cancelling an unreasonable number of appointments within 2 hours of the scheduled appointment time
- failure to attend an unreasonable number of appointments without prior cancellation – see ‘Did Not Attend Policy’
- pre-booking multiple appointments at any given time, prior to the first appointment even having taken place; or, pre-booking multiple appointments ‘just in case’ and then cancelling at the last minute or changing to another family member’s name; any other form of appointment ‘blocking’
If we believe that a patient may be misusing the appointments system in any of the ways outlined above, or if there are any other issues brought to our attention in regard to somebody’s appointment booking patterns, we will contact you and highlight our concerns. We will work with you to reach a resolution that ensures your continued access to services, but one that does not put you at an unfair advantage over other patients. If no agreement can be reached and a patient is consistently in breach of our Fair Usage Policy, we may need to ask them to find another GP surgery as them remaining registered with us could be putting other patients at a disadvantage.Thank you for your understanding.
Opening Times
- Monday
08:00 to 19:00 - Tuesday
08:00 to 18:30 - Wednesday
08:00 to 18:30 - Thursday
07:00 to 18:30 - Friday
08:00 to 18:30 - Saturday
CLOSED - Sunday
CLOSED
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