We offer a mix of pre-bookable and book on the day appointments.  These appointments can either be booked as face to face or telephone appointments. 

Once all our routine appointments are gone for the day, our clinicians will telephone triage all requests for urgent treatment and advice.  If your problem is not urgent but there are no pre-bookable appointments available in an acceptable timeframe, you will be asked to call again opportunistically for a routine book on the day appointment.

Our administrative staff are trained to ask you what you need to consult about, this ensures you see or speak to the most appropriate member of the healthcare team and also enables our clinicians to deal with telephone calls in order of clinical urgency.

In addition to our in-house clinicians we have other services at our disposal which you may be offered as an alternative to seeing or talking to an Arlington Road Clinician.  Please see below for more information about the Extended Access Appointments and Pharmacy First.

South Downs Health and Care GP Federation (SDHC) provides additional appointment capacity for all GP Practices in Eastbourne, Hailsham and Seaford as well as the Havens and High Weald.

The Extended Access Service (EAS) that they deliver is designed to help increase the capacity to talk to and see a healthcare professional. Appointments are available 7 days per week, 365 days per year.

The GP or Advanced Care Practitioner that you see or speak to will not be from Arlington Road but they will be a fully qualified Healthcare Professional, who will be able to access your notes and will be able to issue a prescription if needed.

These appointments are bookable via our admin team, you may be routinely offered one of these consultations and if not, you are welcome to ask to book one. 

Face to face appointments tend to be located at the SDHC Primary Care Hub at Hampden Park Health Centre, Brodrick Close.

Community pharmacies can offer treatment for seven common conditions without patients needing to see a GP, as part of a major transformation in the way the NHS delivers care.

Highly trained pharmacists at more than nine in ten pharmacies can now assess and treat patients for earache, impetigo, infected insect bites, shingles, sinusitis, sore throat, urinary tract infections (UTIs) for women aged 16-64 – without the need for a GP appointment.

Available on the high-street, community pharmacy teams have the right clinical training to give people the health advice they need, with no appointment necessary and private consultations available. Community pharmacists will signpost patients to other local services where necessary.

By expanding the services community pharmacies offer, the NHS is aiming to help free up GP appointments and give people more choice in how and where they access care.

Don’t wait for minor health concerns to get worse - think pharmacy first and get seen by your local pharmacy team. For more information, visit nhs.uk/thinkpharmacyfirst

During Surgery Hours - Telephone 727531

If you are unwell and think you may require a home visit, please ring the above number before 10:30 if possible. Home visits will only be made where the clinician considers that there is a medical need. The clinician may ring back before coming to see you in order to obtain more details, as there may be a more appropriate way of dealing with the problem, such as a direct referral to hospital.

Pets and Home Visits

• Are you too unwell to attend the Surgery and require a home visit?
• Do you have a pet in the house?

 If you have answered yes to both of the above please consider the safety of our Clinicians and ensure your pet is shut in another room for the duration of the visit. You may not consider your pet to be dangerous, but pets can be unpredictable particularly if they feel their owner is under threat.  An examination by the doctor may be seen by your pet as a threat and they may attack, out of character, to protect. Our clinicians want to ensure that all patients receive the best care possible.  Please help them to deliver the best care by ensuring their safety is not jeopardised whilst they carry out your home visit.

When requesting a home visit our receptionist will ask you if you have a pet in the house and ask you to ensure that any pets are shut in another room before the doctor enters the house and is not released until after the doctor has left. 

Thank you for your co-operation.

Remember if you cannot keep an appointment or no longer need it please contact us to cancel it, you can do this by one of the following methods...

• Telephoning into the Practice and leaving an answerphone message on the appointment cancellation line at any time of day or night
• Telephoning the Practice during the working day and speaking to a receptionist
• Via Patient Online Services, if you have registered for this service.  
• Replying 'cancel' to your SMS appointment reminder.

As we continue to experience a high number of unattended pre-booked appointments we will write to you if you miss a doctor’s appointment. After three missed appointments it is the practice policy to only allow you to book appointments through the receptionists and not via Patient Online Services.

Please tell us:

• If you would prefer to consult with the doctor or nurse by phone, face-to-face, by video call or by text or email
• If you need an interpreter
• If you have any other access or communication needs

We have a texting service which allows you to receive confirmation and reminders about your appointments.

If you have provided us with a mobile number, you will automatically be signed up to receive appointment reminders.  If however, you do not wish to receive appointment reminders or other information via text message from the Practice, please complete our SMS Text Messaging and Email Opt Out Form.

Please remember to update your contact details with us when you change address, telephone numbers and email address.