Easter 2024 Opening Hours for Wallingbrook Surgery, Wallingbrook Dispensary and Winkleigh Surgery:

E-Consults / Online Consultations will close at 6pm Thursday 28th March and re-open at 6.30pm Monday 1st April  

Wallingbrook & Winkleigh Surgery open at 8am to 6pm.

Wallingbrook Dispensary open at 8.30am to 6.30pm.

 If you need medical advice when the parctice is closed, you can: 

• Visit a pharmacy. A pharmacy can provide confidential, expert advice and treatment for a range of common illnesses and complaints. Opening times for local Pharmacies can be found at https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/pharmacy/find-a-pharmacy
   

  Access NHS 111. If you need urgent medical advice but your condition is not life threatening, simply visit https://111.nhs.uk/, enter your age, sex, postcode and main symptom, and then you will be guided through a series of questions about your health problems.
   
  To access the service via phone, simply dial 111 from any mobile or landline free of charge and you will be put through to an operator who will run through a few questions regarding your health problem in order to get you the right care.
   
  A&E or 999. For a genuine medical emergency including; loss of consciousness, acute confused state and fits that are not stopping, persistent and or/severe chest pain, breathing difficulties, severe bleeding that cannot be stopped call 999 or go to your nearest A&E.

Wallingbrook Health Group have been successfully using eConsult to help access our services for almost 4 years.  NHS England require all practices to offer an online consultation service,  allowing patients to contact their practice without coming into the surgery or waiting on the telephone.

We are grateful to patients who use eConsult, it enables the team to answer the phones for patients who are unable to easily access online resources, and patients who need urgent assistance.

We have always taken pride on being amongst the very small minority of practices who offer the eConsult service outside of surgery hours. We intend to continue offering this service but have been made aware of incidents where eConsults submitted at the start of the weekend detailed symptoms in need of review sooner had not been reviewed prior to Wallingbrook opening again on a Monday.

No harm occurred; however, we want to prioritise optimal levels of safety in our systems and prevent harm from occurring. For this reason, we have chosen to close eConsult at weekends and bank holiday weekends.

From Friday 5 January, eConsult will close at 18:00 on Fridays and re-open on Sundays at 18:30 (except on Bank Holidays).

We will continue to keep eConsult open during the weekday evenings to enable continuing access for those that work Monday to Friday. This will enable us to continue providing a service that offers better access than many other surgeries.

If you require medical advice outside of our operating hours, please call 111 or in a medical emergency call 999.

We are grateful for your understanding around this issue and would like to apologise for any inconvenience.

We have activated the patient call back facility on our phone system. This means when you telephone the practice you will now be able to choose to stay in the call queue or to save you waiting you can choose the call back option.

How do I choose the Call Back Option?

If we are experiencing high call volumes when you telephone the practice the phone system will activate the following message:

We are experiencing high levels of calls. You can press 1 now to retain your position in the queue and we will call you back when you are at the front of the queue. Please have your phone to hand to receive our call. If however you would like to continue to hold without ending the call, please stay on the line.’

When will the Practice Call Back?

Once you have chosen the Call Back option your place in the queue is retained, the practice will call you back when you are at the front of the queue.