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The Right Care for You

Introduction

Traditionally when we have felt unwell we would make an appointment to see our GP.

As the NHS has developed and our demands on it have grown, a number of other roles have been introduced. 

Many of these are specialist in nature and this means that having an appointment with someone with special training or an interest related to your health issue is more beneficial than the generality of a GP. 

There will be times when it will be necessary to see the doctor, but often there are other people at the surgery who can provide more specialist care and faster, this then allows our GP team to focus on those who need their care the most.

Below is a description of some of the other members of our healthcare team and how they can assist you.  

Mental Health Support Workers

Providing support to patients who are struggling to cope with stress, anxiety, depression or a personality disorder. There is both an adult service and a separate child service (for children aged 8-18) provided by Mind, which aims to help improve your coping skills, using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy techniques to help you improve your independence and resilience.

This is not a counselling service.

The Mental Health Support Worker works with you to help you to begin actively taking steps towards your own recovery.

A GP referral is required into the service, please call and make an appointment if you would like to discuss this.

Social Prescribers

Social Prescribing is an opportunity to talk at length about any worries that might be affecting health and wellbeing in a safe environment. The service supports individuals to make positive changes in their life and within their communities by linking them to volunteers, activities, voluntary and community groups, and public services that can help. You might be worried about housing and finance, suffering from loneliness or keen to find out about local courses. You can find out more about the Going Local service at: Phil's Going Local Story | Adur & Worthing Councils - YouTube. You can either be referred to the service by a healthcare professional, or alternatively self-refer here. To find out more information about social prescribing please click or tap here

Wellbeing Advisors

Our Wellbeing Advisor offers interventions to actively support behavioural change, particularly for individuals with long-term conditions where lifestyle change could help. Such advice may focus on weight management, adhering to a treatment regime, becoming more active or managing mood. Support is also on offer for those who would like to take a preventative approach to  reducing their risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer and type 2 diabetes through following a health lifestyle. Our GPs refer patients to ????? or alternatively you can call the surgery and ask to make an appointment

Care Coordinators

Becky and Karen are the Ball Tree Surgery’s Care Coordinators. They work with patients with long term conditions and complex health and social needs to offer support and guidance on accessing services. They particularly focus their time on frail individuals, those with learning disabilities those with severe mental illness and their carers. The aim of Care Coordinators is to enhance the quality of an individual’s care and support them to manage their long-term needs to live as well and as independently as possible. Please ask a member of our reception team if you think that you or a loved one would benefit from speaking with the Care Coordinator team.

Pharmacy Team

Our Pharmacy Team of 2 Clinical Pharmacists and 3 Pharmacy Technicians focus on day-to-day medication queries from patients, and hospital letters and discharges, and ensure all patients are monitored appropriately for the medications they are taking. The team focus on Care Home residents and Structured Medication Reviews for those on complex and problematic polypharmacy in particular.

Paramedic Practitioner

Our Paramedic Practitioner helps to triage patients by providing safe, individualised patient care. They work as part of our multidisciplinary team and have regular contact with our GPs and Nurse Practitioners and will refer patients on when necessary. Our paramedic carries out face-to-face examinations and home visits will be carried out for our most vulnerable patients with acute, ongoing and complex health needs.

Physiotherapists

We have first contact practitioners attached to our surgery providing care for those with complex musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions.

Book a Blood Test @ the Hospitals

Introduction - Adult Blood Tests

We have a very limited number of blood test appointments each day. 

We are also limited by the timing of our blood courier collections by the hospital to have appointments earlier in the day.

Using the hospitals

It will often be faster for you to collect a blood test form from the surgery, and book to have your blood taken at Worthing or Southlands Hospitals. 

NOTE 1: The hospitals no longer offer a walk in service.
NOTE 2: The hospital will not take your blood without a blood form.
NOTE 3: Our Reception Team can only print out blood forms that have been set up by Clinical Team members at the Surgery. We cannot print out forms for blood tests requested by the hospitals.
NOTE 4: You can collect a blood form from the Reception Desks at either of our sites.

How to book blood test appointment at the hospitals

Local Blood Test Booking

Introduction - Children's Blood Tests

Ball Tree is only able to do blood tests for people aged 16 and over

For children aged 12 to 16, appointments have to be booked via the hospital. Please contact our Reception Team for more information

For children aged under 12, appointments are likely to be held at Bluefin Ward. Please contact our Reception Team for more information

We have a mix of in-person and telephone, pre-bookable and on-the-day appointments with our GPs.
The demand far exceeds our capacity to provide appointments to meet the ask despite us increasing our GP numbers.

Our aim is to support you to access the right clinician for you as soon as we are able. Please answer all the questions from our trained reception team and they will guide you through our process. 

Please call 01903 752 200

The team may offer you options to be referred to a pharmacist for some conditions, or to one of our in house specialist team of clinicians.  This may help you be supported sooner.  Please note that all our clinical team have access to a GP where this may be needed.  We also have options for appointments for early evening and Saturday mornings for certain conditions.

If you are coming to see us in person, please check which location your appointment is – either our main location in Sompting or our Kingfisher Branch in Lancing.

URGENT GP Appointments

If you feel you need to talk with a GP about an urgent matter choose this option on the phone. The reception team will ask you questions.  Your answers will be shared with the Duty GP for that day.  The Duty GP will decide what the best option will be for you and will call you back and either support you on the phone or ask you to come in for a face to face appointment on the day.  The Reception Team cannot book an appointment with the Duty GP - the GP will make the arrangements.

Non-Urgent GP Appointments

Where possible, we encourage you to see the same GP for ongoing concerns.  This may not always be possible, but please ask the Reception Team to see when the next available appointment is with the GP you have seen most recently if you think that this would help.  We have a limited number of appointments available for pre-booking up to 2 weeks in advance.

Non-Urgent GP Appointments - Early Morning + Evening and Weekend

We have a limited number of GP appointments provided outside our usual hours.  We have a mixture of in person and phone appointments.  The in-person appointments are located at Ball Tree Surgery, Western Road North, BN15 9UX

Contact Us Online - Non-Urgent Matters Only

We have an alternative route to the surgery instead of using the telephone.  Depending upon the information you share, it may be that you are able to receive an appointment via our online tool called 'Engage Consult'.  For more information use this LINK TO ONLINE SERVICES

There is also a great deal of self-help information to support you within Engage Consult – we recommend seeing if there is something in there that may help you.

We have a range of appointments with our team of nurses and health care assistants each day

Ongoing Conditions

If you have an ongoing condition - such as Asthma or Diabetes if you have a mobile phone number we will send an invitation by text with a link for you to self-book into our appointment system.  This will save you having to call the surgery.  The invitations usually are sent out a few weeks before your birthday.  Please click on the text links as soon as you can, as they time out after a day or so.  Otherwise you will receive a letter or call.  If you have the NHS App your message may be sent to the App.  Please make sure you have NHS App Notifications switched to ON.

Please let us know if you think you are due a review.  We offer a mix of phone and in-person appointments depending upon your individual needs.

Specialist Clinics

Child immunisations

Coils and Implants

Travel Vaccinations

In an EMERGENCY call 999.
Emergencies are situations that cannot be managed at home and may be life threatening

  Find Accident & Emergency services