Patients are able to book appointments during the surgery's normal opening hours of 8.00am and 6.30pm, Monday to Friday. We also offer ‘commuter’ appointments, pre-booked only, on three early mornings (Mondays, Tuesdays & Wednesdays from 7.00am) and one late evening (Wednesdays until 8.00pm). GP appointments are opened for booking a week in advance. Appointments with other clinicians are opened further in advance.
For best availability of GP appointments, please go online or phone at 2.30pm Monday - Friday, as this is when GP appointments are released for the same day in a week's time. For example, at 2.30pm on a Tuesday, the GP appointments for the following Tuesday are released both online or by telephoning Reception.
If your problem is urgent and there are no available appointments, please inform the receptionist who will pass a message to the duty doctor.
From October 2022, we are also able to offer some appointments to our registered patients outside of our normal (8.00am to 6.30pm) weekday hours and on Saturdays at practices in our Primary Care Network (PCN), which is called APL PCN. The GP surgeries within APL PCN are The Albion Surgery (Bexleyheath), Bursted Wood Surgery (Barnehurst), ourselves and Lyndhurst Medical Centre (Barnehurst).
Location and travel details.
One problem and one patient per single appointment
Our standard appointments allow 10 minutes with the doctor and are for only one problem. Please do not save your problems up for one single consultation with the doctor. Doctors cannot safely and accurately deal with more than one problem in 10 minutes. If you require more time or wish to consult about more than one problem then please help us by booking a ‘double appointment’. Examples of when a single or double appointment would be appropriate are as follows:
- Back pain + feeling tired all the time = 2 appointments
- Chest infection + repeat prescription = 1 appointment
- Period problems/menopause + BP check - 1 appointment
- Arthritic joints pain + Depression = 2 appointments
- Depression: please book a double appointment. However, if you are in imminent danger of self-harming, please go to A&E or call the crisis number: 0208 308 3138/39
Please do not ask doctors to advise on medical issues relating to siblings/relatives during consultations not originally booked for them.
Book online (by accessing Patient Access online services, otherwise phone 01322 470595 between 8.00am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday (please note the phone lines are very busy first thing for emergency appointments).
If you need help wiht a non-urgent medical or admin request, you can now contact us online.
Our online service (available between 8.00am and 5pm, Mondays to Fridays, except Bank Holidays) allows you to:
- Request advice and treatment from our practice online - you will receive a reply within two working days.
- Get self-help advice for hundreds of common conditions
Practice Nurse Appointments
In some cases it might be worth considering an appointment with a practice nurse rather than a doctor. Practice nurses are qualified to deal with many ailments and you may be seen more quickly.
Training Practice
Plas Meddyg is a training practice, which means that doctors wanting to enter general practice spend time with us to gain the experience they need to become family doctors.
Cancellations
If you cannot attend an appointment for any reason please inform us as soon as possible in order for us to give the slot to someone else. If any patient persistently fails to attend booked appointments without letting us know, we will write to them to remind them of their responsibility to the clinical team and other patients. If this behaviour does not change it may result in their being removed from the practice list.