About Our Surgery

Your NHS now offers lots of community services and self-care options that you can access without needing to see your GP first.

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When you request an appointment at your surgery, the receptionist will ask you the reason why you are calling.

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If you tell us the reason for your call, the receptionist might be able to give you information about services or self-care options that you could access for your symptoms.

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You do not have to say what your symptoms are if you don’t want to, but if you do it might get you the help and information that you need more easily and quickly.

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 * Receptionists are NOT trying to be doctors or make medical assessments and they are duty bound to respect your confidentiality, in exactly the same way the GPs are.

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When you telephone the surgery to book an appointment, the receptionist will ask you the following question:

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• Can I ask the reason for your appointment today?

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This is because the receptionist has a number of different options and types of appointments available, and can direct you to the most appropriate option for your specific problem.

The best option might be to go to the pharmacy or the dentist, or if you do need an appointment it might be the Practice Nurse is the best trained person to help, or perhaps another member of our clinical team.

This way, when you really do need to see a GP, there will be a free appointment for you and the GP will have more time to spend with you.

The following list may help you understand the choices available.

We very much hope that this system will make the best use of the services available both at the Practice and in the wider community.

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• Optician – Any eye problems

• Dentist – Any issues with teeth, mouth ulcers, abscesses

• Pharmacy – Acne, Athletes foot, Backache, Bites and Stings, Chicken Pox, Cold sores, Colic, Conjunctivitis, Constipation, Coughs and Colds, Diarrhoea, Dry Eyes, Earache (less than 3 days), Haemorrhoids, Hay fever, Headlice, Indigestion, Mouth ulcers, Nappy rash, Oral Thrush, Ringworm, Scabies, Sore throat, Teething, Threadworms, UTI, Vaginal Thrush.

• Practice Nurse – Asthma, Contraception, COPD, Diabetes,  Hypertension, UTI (if the pharmacy cant help)

• Social Prescriber – Childcare, Social issues, Housing/Benefits, Homelessness, Relationship/Sexual Issues, Smoking, Exercise, Wellbeing, Anxiety and Stress, Bereavement

• GP – Acute new onset rash, Chest Infection, Acute severe back pain, Concerns over children, Earache (for more than 3 days) Children with tummy pain, Heart Palpitations (not chest pain), Pregnancy (vomiting, pain or bleeding), Severe depression, Severe new headache, Suicidal thoughts, Testicular lumps/pain, Unwell child with high fever

• A&E – Acute new onset chest pain, Difficulty breathing, Unconscious, Stroke, Fitting, Floppy ill child, Severe bleeding, Spinal injury, Severe allergic reaction, Head injury, Broken bones, Poisoning, Burns/scalds, Traumatic Injury, Road Traffic Accident, Sprain (unable to use limb), Nose bleed for longer than 20 minutes.

We hope that most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. If your problem cannot be sorted out in this way and you wish to make a complaint, we would like you to let us know as soon as possible, ideally on the day. This is because the sooner we know about a problem; the easier it will be for us to establish what happened.

In any event, please let us have details of your complaint:

• Within 6 months of the incident that caused the problem; or

• Within 6 months of discovering that you have a problem, providing this is within 12 months of the incident.

Complaints should be addressed in writing to:

The Complaint Manager Mrs. Anetta Kolek, Tooting South Medical Centre, 22 Otterburn Street, London, SW17 9HQ.

It would be helpful you are as specific as possible about your complaint.

The practice will support patients with language or communication needs in order to access the complaints process. Please contact the practice if you require support.

We will acknowledge your complaint within two working days and aim to have looked into your complaint within 28 working days of the date when you raised it with us. We shall then be in a position to offer you an explanation, or a meeting with the people involved. When we look into your complaint, we shall:

• Find out what happened and what went wrong.

• Make it possible for you to discuss the problem with those concerned, if you would like this.

• Make sure you receive an apology, where this is appropriate.

• Identify what we can do to make sure the problem doesn’t happen again.

Please note that we operate a strict confidentiality process, therefore if you are complaining on behalf of someone else, it is essential that you have written and signed consent by the person concerned to authorise you to complain on their behalf unless they are medically incapable of providing written consent.

We hope that, if you have a problem, you will use our practice complaints procedure. We believe this will give us the best chance of putting right whatever has gone wrong and an opportunity to improve our practice. If for any reason you feel that the practice complaints procedure has not resolved your problem, you can contact NHS South West London Integrated Care Board directly from 1st July 2023 (NHS SWLICB).

You can do this by:
Telephone: 0800 026 6082
E-mail: contactus@swlondon.nhs.uk
Writing to them at: NHS South West LondonICB, 120 the Broadway, London, SW19 1RH

If you are still not satisfied, you can write to the Ombudsman who can be contacted at:

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, Millbank Tower, Millbank, London, SW14 4QP Tel: 0345 015 4033  Fax: 0300 061 4000 Email: phso.enquirires@ombudsman.org.uk

The practice operates a Confidentiality Policy.

You can find our practice Privacy Notice below:

1.3.2- Privacy Policy – All

All GP Practices are required to declare mean earnings (i.e. average pay) for GPs working to deliver NHS services to patients at each practice.

The average pay for GPs working at Tooting South Medical Centre in the last financial year was £61,500 before tax and National Insurance.

This is for 3 full time GPs, 1 part time GP and 1 salaried part time GP.

If you need to have a medical or report done for other reasons such as for employment, insurance or driving purposes, this can be arranged at the practice. There is a fee charged for this service, please ask our reception team for further details.

Smoking is not permitted in any part of the building or grounds.

The practice operates a zero tolerance policy. Patients who are abusive, verbally abusive or act in an inappropriate or threatening manner towards practice staff or other patients may be removed from the practice register and may also be reported to the police.