Opening Times (Core Hours)

Our core opening hours are 8am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday (excluding Bank Holidays and one Wednesday afternoon each month when we are closed for training. Please refer to the next tab "When We are Closed" to see the dates when we are closed for training).

Patient Online Access

Using the Patient Online Access service you can now access and view your health records wherever you are. With Patient Online you can acces GP services from your computer, tablet or mobile phone as well as through your local surgery. You will be able to:

1) View and Renew your repeat prescriptions;

2) View your health records;

3) Update your personal contact details.

To use the above service please visit www.patient.co.uk and click on the Patient Access tab to sign-in or fill-in your personal details and commence the registration process. Alternatively ask the surgery staff at Rillwood M.C. to print out your unique registration details before you visit the above website. In order to fully complete the registration process you will be required to produce proof of your personal ID.

2023 BANK HOLIDAY CLOSURE

NOTE: In 2022 Christmas Day and Boxing Day will fall on Sunday and Monday respectively. The Christmas Day bank holiday will therefore fall on Tuesday, 27th December. We will therefore be closed on the Monday and Tuesday.

In a genuine emergency you should call 999  e.g. Chest pains and / or shortness of breath constitute an emergency.  

Please ring NHS 111 anytime of day or night if you need either Urgent or Non-Emergency help

The service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to direct people to the right service as well as providing the local OOH call handling service and replacing NHS Direct. You can dial 111 from landlines or mobiles – all calls are free.  There is a Typetalk service (18001 111) for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Click here to visit NHS111 website

For support with the management of minor ailments, please contact your local pharmacist or visit the NHS Choice website www.nhs.uk or call 111 – www.111.nhs.uk

Click Here for Your Guide to Local Health Services - Choose Well

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Dental emergency and out-of-hours care

If you think you need urgent care, contact your usual dentist as some dental surgeries offer emergency dental slots and will provide care if clinically necessary. You can also contact NHS 111, who can put you in touch with an urgent dental service.

For dental problems please arrange to visit your dental surgery. If you are not registered with a dental surgery you may contact one of the following dental services:

• Tel. 01604 639296 8am – 8pm Dental Service (Billing Road, Northampton)
• Mobile Tel. no. 07860 879279 Out of Hours Dental Service
• Ring NHS111 or visit their website www.111.nhs.uk 

For eye problems please arrange to visit an optician.

For urgent eye care please go to the `Eye Casualty’ department at Northampton General Hospital.

This is open: –

• Monday-Friday : 8.30 - 5pm in the eye outpatient area
• Saturday : 9am - 4.30pm on the Singlehurst day case unit
• Sundays and Bank Holidays : 9am - 12.30pm on the Singlehurst day case unit

If you need urgent help outside of these hours please go to the Accident and Emergency department.

Eye casualty (Northampton General Hospital):

To help to keep our patients and staff safe we are changing the way we operate our eye casualty service. The service will no longer operate as a walk-in service.

Instead patients will need to contact us by phone before coming to the hospital.

This means our team can provide support and medical advice over the phone without patients needing to come to hospital. If you do need to come to the hospital for medical help the team will arrange this with you. Please contact the hospital eye service on 01604 545085 or 01604 634700 ext 8011

How to find us

We are based in Area L, the nearest car park is car park 4

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Health Visitors - Out of Hours Service: 0300 1111 022

We can offer advice and support around minor illnesses. If you would like to speak to a Health Visitor please call the Out of Hours Health Visitor Advice Line on the telephone number below during the following times:

Monday to Friday 5pm -  8pm OR Saturday mornings between 9am - 1pm

Phone: 07834 754618

Maternity Community Office: 01604 545430

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IMPORTANT NOTICE 2023

The surgery will be closed in the afternoons from 12.30pm on the following dates for Clinical Education / Training

2023 BANK HOLIDAY CLOSURE

Extra National Bank Holiday for the Coronation of HM King Charles III on Monday 8th May 2023

In a genuine emergency you should call 999  e.g. Chest pains and / or shortness of breath constitute an emergency.  

Local Pharmacies

Local pharmacists are able to give you free health advice and you don’t need an appointment. Many pharmacies operate extended hours on a rota basis. Your pharmacist can also advise on what you might find useful to keep in your medicine cabinet. 

NHS England easy-read-over-the-counter medicines-Prescribing leaflet_2018 - Click Here

Pharmacy Christmas Rota (2023 update pending)

Surgery Tel. 01604 405006
Surgery Email: rillwood.k83020@nhs.net

MORE BOOKABLE GP APPOINTMENTS

ARE AVAILABLE IN NORTHAMPTON

6.30pm -9:30pm Weekdays and 9:00am-5:00pm Weekends

There are now more bookable GP appointments in Northampton, making it easier for you to get an appointment at a time that suits you including evenings, weekends and bank holidays.

The Northampton GP Ehanced Access Service is a new additional service that is an extension of your usual GP Practice, it is not a Walk-In-Service – You need to contact your GP Practice to make an appointment.

The Enhanced Access Service at evenings and week-ends is located on the ground floor of Highfield Clinical Care Centre, Cliftonville Rd, Northampton NN1 5BD (sited in between the Securicor and Avery Care Home buildings on Cliftonville Rd)

Getting here:

Who can access appointments?

Anyone registered with a GP Practice in Northampton

How do I book an appointment?

Contact your GP Practice in the usual way to request an appointment. If there is no appointments available for you at the practice they may offer you an appointment with the GP Extended Access Service, if this is right for you.

Will I see my own GP and/or Nurse?

You will be seen by experienced Northampton GPs and Nurses, but it is unlikely that you will be seen by your own GP or Nurse. If you would prefer to see your usual GP or Nurse, please book an appointment with your usual GP practice during their normal opening hours.

Will the GP I see have access to my medical record during my appointment?

Your medical record will, with your consent, be available to the Health Care Professional that sees you to ensure that they have the information they need to give you the best possible care.

A summary of your appointment will be sent back to your own GP practice electronically to ensure that your record is up-to-date. An appointment with this service will be just like an appointment at your own GP practice. Further information about how we use your medical record is available at www.northantsgpalliance.com/GDPR

How do I cancel an appointment?

If you need to cancel the appointment, please contact your registered GP Practice. A dedicated telephone number for cancellations will be shared soon.

When are these appointments available?

Appointments are available from 6:30pm – 9:30pm Weekdays, 9:00am -5:00pm Weekends.

Appointments need to be booked in advance.

Where do I go for my appointment?

The service is located on the ground floor of the main entrance of Highfield Clinical Care Centre, Cliftonville Rd, Northampton NN1 5BD.

To find out more about these services please visit www.northantsgpalliance.com/services-we-offer/gpea

GP Surgery: Appointments at the surgery with our Advanced Nurse Practitioner at are routinely pre-bookable, as are blood tests, blood pressure monitoring and other health checks with our Health Care Assistants.

Due to the high number of same-day acute medical cases, a large proportion of the available appointments with a doctor are used to meet the acute medical needs of our patients and for this reason are bookable only `on-the-day'.

If the Practice is closed please continue to use the NHS 111 service to contact the  24 hours / 7 days a week `Out-of-Hours' service if you urgently need medical help or advice but it's not a life-threatening situation. They will also be able to book an appointment for you with the GP Extended Access Service. Please note that your consent will be required in order for an appointment to be booked for you.

Call 111 if:

• you need medical help fast but it's not a 999 emergency
• you think you need to go to A&E or need another NHS urgent care service
• you don't know who to call or you don't have a GP to call
• you need health information or reassurance about what to do next

If urgent care is required, please call ‘111’ for further advice.

If your need is life threatening, please go to A&E or call 999.

Patient Triage NEW! 

To meet the current challenges facing the NHS, we have adopted new models of clinical service delivery which now includes online access to Patient Triage. Please click the following hyperlink to begin:  https://florey.accurx.com/p/K83020

Patients seeking to book an appointment for medical problems will now be offered an initial telephone triage call or telephone consultation with the nurse or the doctor. They will carry out an assessment and offer the most appropriate treatment. If the clinician needs to perform an examination they will make arrangements for a face to face appointment with you.

ONLINE CONSULATIONS: E-Consultations in the NHS

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Health A to Z Conditions and Treatments click here to begin

Appointments

A selection of our nurse and GP appointments are available for patients to pre-book up to 2 weeks in advance. In addition, we also release a large proportion of our routine appointments each morning at 8am. It is preferable to book in advance for a routine appointment but if all routine appointments are taken and your need becomes urgent you will be seen by a clinician but not necessarily the clinician of your choice.  A chaperone will be available if you request one.

Our clinical team now includes a Clinical Pharmacist who offers both face-to-face and telephone appointments to deal with any issues that patients may have concerning their medication(s).

So that appointments are booked with the most appropriate clinician it is necessary for our staff to ask patients for a brief indication of their medical problem. Your co-operation in this regard is very much appreciated.  

Consultations are by appointment only and it is often difficult for clinicians to effectively manage more than one problem at each consultation.

Please ring 01604 405006 to book an appointment or alternatively you can view, book or cancel appointments via the SystmOnline portal. From the 1 July 2019 we will be offering 25% of our available appointments via the online portal. If you have not as yet registered for online access please ask the staff at Rillwood M.C. to print out your unique registration details. It will be necessary for you to produce proof of your personal ID before being granted access to the online system.

When telephoning for an appointment, please say at the outset if your call is about a medically urgent or emergency problem.

If you are not seeking to book an `on the day’ appointment please ring after 2pm when the telephone lines will be less busy.

Late For Your Appointment

Please attend your appointment on time. If you are more than 10 minutes late the patient `check-in' system will automatically mark the appointment as a `Did Not Attend' and you may not be seen. If the clinician determines on the basis of your medical needs to see you, then you may have to wait until after other patients have been seen who arrived on time for their appointment. 

If after arriving late for your appointment you are not seen then you will normally not be able to re-arrange your appointment until the next working day. This is to due to patient daily demand for appointments.  However, a medical emergency that requires immediate attention will usually be assessed by a clinician on the same day.

Approximately one third of all routine appointments with the nurses and GPs can be booked in advance, typically up to 2 weeks but there may on occasions be exceptions to this e.g. where a clinician has arranged a specific follow-up date with the patient.

If you need to undergo a physical examination please do tell us if you would like to have someone accompany you (i.e. a chaperone) during the consultation.

Text Reminder Service

We have a texting service which allows you to receive confirmation and reminders for your appointment(s).

To benefit from this service you will need to sign-up for this service by completing one of our consent forms.

Also, please remember to update your contact details with us when you change address, telephone numbers or email address.

We recognise that for some patients their work patterns make it difficult for them to attend the surgery during core opening hours (8am to 6.30pm). The launch of the new Extended Access service in Northampton from Monday, 1st October 2018 will offer patients improved access to routine pre-bookable appointments in the evenings and at week-ends. Please scroll down to the middle of this page for more detailed information. 

Some Useful Telephone Numbers

For support with the management of minor ailments, please contact your local pharmacist or visit the NHS Choice website www.nhs.uk or call 111 – www.111.nhs.uk

Click Here for Your Guide to Local Health Services - Choose Well

For dental problems please arrange to visit your dental surgery. If you are not registered with a dental surgery you may contact one of the following dental services:

• Tel. 01604 639296 8am – 8pm Dental Service (Billing Road, Northampton)
• Mobile Tel. no. 07860 879279 Out of Hours Dental Service

For eye problems please arrange to visit an optician. For urgent eye care please go to the `Eye Casualty’ department at Northampton General Hospital.

This is open: –

• Monday-Friday : 8.30 - 5pm in the eye outpatient area
• Saturday : 9am - 5pm on the Singlehurst day case unit
• Sunday : 9am - 1pm on the Singlehurst day case unit

Ultra-Sound Investigations at NGH - Booking Appointments

COMMUNITY NURSING

Community Nursing provides countywide nursing care to housebound people only. Our service ranges from providing post-operative dressing changes to end of life care and long term conditions management. We also provide a small number of clinics for blood tests, complex leg ulcer management, routine catheter changes and a weekend practice nurse clinic in Northampton. Teams within Community Nursing are made up of phlebotomists, healthcare assistants, registered nurses, district nurses and advanced nurse practitioners.

Who is this service for? Community nurses provide high quality care for people in their own homes to promote and maintain independent living through information, guidance and training for patients, carers and families.

How to access this service: Referrals are accepted from GP and other healthcare professionals. Patients being discharged from hospital that require Community Nursing input will be referred directly to the service by the ward. Patients who are already on the Community Nursing caseload can find contact instructions in their patient folder. 

Patients and carers can self-refer if already known to the community nursing, evening district nursing or unplanned intermediate care teams. To contact the District Nursing Team please phone the hub on 0300 777 0002.

Health Visitors - Out of Hours Service: 0300 1111 022

We can offer advice and support around minor illnesses. If you would like to speak to a Health Visitor please call the Out of Hours Health Visitor Advice Line on the telephone number below during the following times:

Monday to Friday 5pm -  8pm OR Saturday mornings between 9am - 1pm

Phone: 07834 754618

Maternity Community Office: 01604 545430

Midwife & Health Visitor Drop-in Clinics

Sure Start - Thorplands Children's Centre Tel. 01604 741131

TO HELP PREVENT THE SPREAD OF COVID-19 THE ONLINE APPOINTMENTS BOOKING FACILITY HAS BEEN  SUSPENDED. You may still order prescriptions and view your hospital pathology results using SystmOnline. 

If you are concerned about your symptoms please use the following NHS 111 online link https://111.nhs.uk/service/covid-19 to access the symptom checker tool.

Please note that due to the Coronavirus Pandemic the online appointment booking system has been temporarily suspended.

Please ring NHS 111 if you need urgent or Non-Emergency help

The service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to direct people to the right service as well as providing the local OOH call handling service and replacing NHS Direct. You can dial 111 from landlines or mobiles – all calls are free.  There is a Typetalk service (18001 111) for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Home Visits

We encourage our patients to come to the surgery where the proper equipment and facilities is available to treat patients. However, we do appreciate that this is not always possible. In this respect, if your medical condition means you cannot make it to the surgery please ring the surgery reception as early in the day as possible and be prepared to provide as much information as you can about your symptoms so that the doctor can fully assess your need for a home visit and also be able to arrange a schedule for making any necessary visits.

You may only request a home visit if you are housebound or are too ill to visit the practice. Your GP will only visit you at home if they think that your medical condition requires it and will also decide how urgently a visit is needed. Please bear this in mind and be prepared to provide suitable details to enable the doctor to schedule house calls.

Health Visitor: If you have recently had a baby you should expect to be visited at home by a member of the health visitors’ team usually within 10 to 14 days after giving birth. You can also expect a home visit from the health visitors’ team if you are newly registered with the surgery and have a child that is under 5 years of age (telephone 0300 1111 022).

Sickness Certificates

Under current Government COVID-19 rules you do not require a doctor's sickness certificate for any illness lasting seven days or less. Your employer may however require you to complete a self-certification form (SC2) which can be provided by them or alternatively can be downloaded from the HMRC website. Please click here to complete and download the online SC2 self-certification form.

Click here for Government guidance on Fit notes and proof of sickness

Statement of Fitness for Work - ’Fit Note'

The 'fit note' was introduced on 6 April 2010. With your employer's support, the note will help you return to work sooner by providing more information about the effects of your illness or injury.

For information about Statutory Sick Pay please see the DirectGov website 

Fit for Work: Free return to work advice and support: http://fitforwork.org/

News 14th April 2022

How to obtain a Coronavirus Isolation Note - providing proof of coronavirus absence from work

If employees are self-isolating and cannot work because of coronavirus (COVID-19) they can get a Self-Isolation Note to share with an employer for sick pay purposes. They do not have to go to their GP or a hospital.

Click HERE for news about isolation-notes

MARCH 2020 - SHIELDING: Definition of clinically extremely vulnerable groups

People who are defined as clinically extremely vulnerable are at very high risk of severe illness from coronavirus.

Updated shielding advice that is more targeted and will only apply in some of the worst affected areas and only for a limited period of time. Currently, clinically extremely vulnerable people in Tier 4 areas are advised to follow shielding advice. No other areas are currently advised to shield.

In the future, the government will only reintroduce formal shielding advice in the very worst affected local areas and for a limited period of time. Currently, this only applies to those areas in Tier 4.

People with the following conditions are automatically deemed clinically extremely vulnerable:

• solid organ transplant recipients
• people with specific cancers:
• people with cancer who are undergoing active chemotherapy
• people with lung cancer who are undergoing radical radiotherapy
• people with cancers of the blood or bone marrow such as leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma who are at any stage of treatment
• people having immunotherapy or other continuing antibody treatments for cancer
• people having other targeted cancer treatments that can affect the immune system, such as protein kinase inhibitors or PARP inhibitors
• people who have had bone marrow or stem cell transplants in the last 6 months or who are still taking immunosuppression drugs
• people with severe respiratory conditions including all cystic fibrosis, severe asthma and severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• people with rare diseases that significantly increase the risk of infections (such as severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), homozygous sickle cell disease)
• people on immunosuppression therapies sufficient to significantly increase risk of infection
• problems with your spleen, for example splenectomy (having your spleen removed)
• adults with Down’s syndrome
• adults on dialysis or with chronic kidney disease (stage 5)
• women who are pregnant with significant heart disease, congenital or acquired
• other people who have also been classed as clinically extremely vulnerable, based on clinical judgement and an assessment of their needs. GPs and hospital clinicians have been provided with guidance to support these decisions.

Government guidance on shielding for the Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (please click this link for detailed information)

Ultra-Sound Investigations at Northampton General Hospital - Booking Appointments

Other Appointments – Self-Referral Patient Services

The following details will be of interest to you if you need to self-refer to any of the following key local services:

Zero Tolerance Policy

Introduction

Danes Camp & Rillwood Medical Practice Partnership takes it very seriously if a member of staff is treated in an abusive or violent way.

The Practice supports the government’s ‘Zero Tolerance‘ campaign for Health Service Staff. This states that GPs and their staff have a right to care for others without fear of being abused either verbally or physically. To successfully provide these services a mutual respect between all the staff and patients has to be in place.

Our Practice staff aim to be polite, helpful, and sensitive to all patients’ individual needs and circumstances. We would respectfully remind patients that very often staff could be confronted with a multitude of varying and sometimes difficult tasks and situations, all at the same time. The staff understand that ill patients do not always act in a reasonable manner and will take this into consideration when trying to deal with a misunderstanding or complaint.

However, aggressive behaviour, be it abusive language or violence will not be tolerated and may result in the patient being removed from the Practice list and, in extreme cases, the Police being contacted.

In order for the practice to maintain good relations with their patients the practice would like to ask all its patients to read and take note of the occasional types of behaviour that would be found unacceptable:

• Using bad language or swearing at practice staff
• Any physical violence towards any member of the Primary Health Care Team or other patients, such as pushing or shoving
• Verbal abuse towards the staff in any form including verbally insulting the staff
• Racial abuse and sexual harassment will not be tolerated within this practice
• Persistent or unrealistic demands that cause stress to staff will not be accepted. Requests will be met wherever possible and explanations given when they cannot
• Causing damage/stealing from the Practice’s premises, staff or patients
• Obtaining drugs and/or medical services fraudulently
• We ask you to treat your GPs and their staff courteously at all times.

The Legal Position

As a responsible employer, the Practice has a duty as a provider of NHS healthcare to protect the health, safety and welfare of staff under the Health & Safety at Work Act. This includes a risk assessment of violence towards staff and taking steps to mitigate this under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

Abuse of Staff at Work

The NHS acknowledges that there may be instances where abuse, aggression and / or violence forms part of a patient’s illness. In these circumstances, the issue will be discussed with the patient and form part of their care planning.

This information will be recorded in the patient’s medical record and flagged to ensure that members of staff are aware. In addition, where deemed necessary, appropriate support will be put in place, e.g. staff members do not see or deal with the patient alone.

Definition of Physical and Verbal Abuse and Violence:

The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) defines work-related violence as:
“Any incident, in which a person is abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances relating to their work”.

Violence and aggression towards a person may also be defined as:
“A physical contact with another person which may or may not result in pain or injury. The contact is uninvited and is an attempt to cause harm, injury or to intimidate. Non-physical aggression includes the use of language which causes offence or threatens the safety of a member of staff”.

Physical and verbal abuse includes:

• Unreasonable and / or offensive remarks or behaviour / rude gestures / innuendoes
• Sexual and racial harassment
• Threatening behaviour (with or without a weapon)
• Actual physical assault (whether or not it results in actual injury) includes being pushed or shoved as well as being hit, punched or attacked with a weapon, or being intentionally struck with bodily fluids or excrement.
• Attacks on partners, members of staff or the public
• Discrimination of any kind
• Damage to an employee’s or employer’s property

Removal from the Practice List

The removal of patients from our list is an exceptional and rare event and is a last resort in an impaired patient-practice relationship. We value and respect good patient-doctor relationships based on mutual respect and trust. When trust has irretrievably broken down, the practice will consider all factors before removing a patient from their list, and communicate to them that it is in the patient’s best interest that they should find a new practice. An exception to this is in the case of immediate removal on the grounds of violence e.g. when the Police are involved.

Removing other members of the household

Because of the possible need to visit patients at home, it may be necessary to terminate responsibility for other members of the family or the entire household to ensure the safety of practice staff.

The prospect of visiting patients that are in the residence of a relative who is no longer a patient of the practice, or the risk of being regularly confronted by the removed patient, may make it difficult for the practice to continue to look after the whole family. This is more likely where the removed patient has been violent or displayed threatening behaviour, and keeping the other family members on the practice list could put doctors or their staff at risk.

We ask you to treat your GPs and their staff courteously at all times.

The Practice supports the Zero Tolerance stance adopted by the NHS.

LIVI

See a GP by video with LIVI. Even at the weekend.

Patients of Rillwood Medical Centre can now see an NHS GP by video using LIVI.

Get medical advice, prescriptions and referrals on the same day – even at weekends.

The service is provided free on the NHS.

• You can download the LIVI app to your mobile phone or tablet, at the App Store or Google Play. Or visit livi.co.uk for more information.

• LIVI GPs are all GMC-registered NHS GPS, who (with your consent) will be able to access your medical records and give you a considered, in-depth diagnosis based on your medical history.

You can download the LIVI app below:

Download on the App Store

Get it on Google Play