Dear Patient
Out of Area Registration (without home visits); who to contact.
We have recently registered you at the practice as an ‘out of area’ registered patient. We are aware that you live outside the practice area (catchment area) and when we registered you we explained that we are not required to provide you with a home visit.
You may on occasion, develop an urgent illness or injury at home that means attending the GP surgery as normal would not be appropriate.
If you require a GP please contact the practice in the first instance. If we determine you need access to services local to where you live we may ask you to call NHS 111.
In the circumstances NHS 111 will direct you to the local serviced that has been established by NHS England for patients such as you. This local service could be a GP practice near to where you live, the local walk-in or urgent care centre, A&E or minor injuries unit.
The local service will then decide if you can attend for an urgent face to face appointment with a healthcare professional or if a home visit is needed which will be on your individual circumstances.
If this is in the out-of-hours period, when GP surgeries are normally closed between 6:30pm and 8:30am weekdays and during weekends, NHS 111 will direct you to the local out of hours provider.
Please see full guidance below regarding out of area registrations. Although you have been accepted as an out of area patient this status may change.
Out of area registration:
New arrangements introduced from January 2015 give people greater choice when choosing a GP practice. Patients may approach any GP practice, even if they live outside of the practice area, to see if they will be accepted on to their patient list.
GP practices have always had the ability to accept patients who live outside their practice area. Regardless of distance from the practice, the practice would still provide a home visit if clinically necessary.
The new arrangements mean GP practices now have the option to register patients who live outside the practice area but without any obligation to provide home visits. Out of area registration (with or without home visits) is voluntary for GP practices meaning patients may be refused because they live out of area.
If your application is considered the GP practice will only register you without home visits if it is clinically appropriate and practical in your individual case.
To do this we may:
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Ask you or the practice you are currently registered with questions about health to help decide whether to register you in this way
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Ask you questions about why it is practical for you to attend this practice (for example how many days during the week you would normally be able to attend)
If accepted, you will attend the practice and receive the full range of services provided as normal at the surgery. If you have an urgent care need and the surgery cannot help you at home we may ask you to call NHS 111 and they will put you in touch with a local service (this may be a face to face appointment with a local healthcare professional or a home visit where necessary).
We may decide that it is not in your best interests or practical for you to be registered in this way. In these circumstances we may offer you registration with home visits, for example, if you live just outside the practice area or we may not register you with the advice you should seek to register (or remain registered) with a more local practice.
We need to be able to safely and urgently assess our patients when required and this can be more challenging when you live outside of our practice area as we will be unable to visit you at home and travelling to the surgery may be difficult if you are unwell.”
If accepted, and your health needs change, we may review your registration to see if it would be more appropriate for you to be registered with a GP practice closer to your home.
This new arrangement only applies to GP practices and patients who live in England. For further information visit the NHS choices website (www.nhs.uk).