Improving how you contact Tudor Lodge

UPDATED JULY 2024: Since December 2023, we’ve made changes to improve your experience of contacting Tudor Lodge and getting what you need from us faster and easier. This moves us in line with new NHS contract requirements and responds to patient feedback in our Winter 2023 survey.

Contacting the surgery online for appointments and queries

You should now contact the practice using our online GP system if you can where you will be asked to fill in a short form.

We encourage all patients to contact us this way so they can tell us what they need in their own words and get the help they need more quickly.

You don’t need an account to use our online GP system and the service is available Monday to Friday from 7.30am.

• All online requests go directly to a GP for review.
• Our team constantly monitors and responds to online requests throughout the day and aims to respond to urgent requests within two hours.
• Online requests received after 1pm may not be dealt with until the following working day.
• We aim to deal with all admin and non-urgent requests within 48 hours.

We will use the information you give us to choose the most suitable doctor, nurse, health professional or service to help you. 

Ordering repeat prescriptions, checking test results and cancelling appointments you no longer need can also be done through the online form or the NHS App if you already use it. Read more about using the NHS App on NHS.uk.

Phoning the surgery for appointments and queries

Anyone who cannot use the internet can still phone the practice and our care navigators will assist you in completing the online form over the phone.

For patients with a mobile phone, you can skip the queue and receive a text message with a link to book your appointment or send us your query through an online form on our website.

For patients who do not or cannot go online and need to call the surgery instead, our care navigators can assist you in completing the online form over the phone. 

Why we made these changes

We’re always looking for ways to improve our service to better serve you and our community at Tudor Lodge. Here are the reasons we made the changes to the way you contact us:

• New NHS contract requirements that came out in the summer of 2023 mean GP practices are required to provide patients with an appropriate response each time they contact the practice and in a timely manner. Nobody likes waiting when they are ill and as health professionals, we don’t either. To make sure that all patients are dealt with fairly and to make sure our team can manage this requirement safely, we have chosen to follow the same process regardless of how, or when you contact us.
• Many patients told us in our patient survey that they already use our website to book appointments and send requests online and say it’s easy and convenient. You can take your time to explain your needs in writing rather than feeling rushed and flustered on a phone call and share sensitive information with us without having to explain it over the phone to someone unfamiliar. 

By directing all patients to use online services where possible means we can:

• Make sure more patients’ needs are met in a timely manner.
• Free up the telephone lines for those without internet access.
• Improve our overall practice efficiency and meet our NHS contract requirements of providing a safe, responsive service to all our patients including the most vulnerable in our community.