The Acorn Group Practice

We provide extended hours each day between 7.30am and 8am, also extended hours on Wednesday evenings between 6.30pm and 7.pm with our Practice Nurse and on Thursday mornings between 7am – 8am with our Phlebotomist.

Treatment Room

Our nurse and health care assistant carry out all routine nursing procedures as well as many tests and investigations. They offer health screening and preventative medicine.
All appointments are pre-booked.

Health Screening

We encourage all patients to take advantage of the excellent screening facilities offered by the practice.

0 – 5 Child development checks
40 – 74 Well person screening checks
75 – plus Screening checks

Please check with the receptionist if you wish to make an appointment for screening.

Cervical Cytology (Smear Test)

To reduce the risk of cancer, cervical smear tests should be performed regularly (unless indicated by the doctors) between the ages of 25 – 65.

If you are not up to date with your smears you will be notified by post that you are due a smear test. We ask all female patients who have had a smear test to ring the surgery about one month after the test was taken to confirm the result unless notified by post.

Blood Tests

We hold various sessions for this service:

Phlebotomist – Thursday 07:00am – 14:00pm. Appointment required.

Healthcare Assistant – Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Appointment required.

Please telephone the surgery after 3.30pm to collect your test results.

Family Planning

Family planning is an important part of our work and we provide a full contraceptive and advice service.

New Patient Screening

All newly registered patients will be asked to see the nurse or health care assistant for a new patient screening health check. Ideally this should be completed before you see the doctor so that a synopsis of your medical history, tests and immunisation status is available for the doctor.

Prevention

We believe preventative medicine to be a vital part of our work. Our treatment room nurses will explain our screening programmes to you. These include blood pressure and weight checks and advice on smoking, obesity, drink problems, smear tests, etc.

An important part of preventative work is encouraging people to take responsibility for their own health. So, advice on exercise and a balanced diet are part of these programmes too. These check-ups are available to patients by appointment.

We run well woman and well man clinics. Other clinics include asthma, diabetes, heart disease prevention, anti-coagulant (INR) and travel advice.

Counselling

Referral to counsellors is by GP only.

Pregnancy

If you are planning a pregnancy it is advisable for women to take a folic acid supplement some months before conception and to continue up to the 14th week of pregnancy.