Seeing the GP: Advice and tips for young people

NHS ‘walk-in centres’ are usually managed by nurses and are available to everyone. Some also offer access to doctors. No appointment is needed, though there may be a bit of a wait to be seen. Most centres are open every day and outside office hours. They can be used when someone:

•    can’t see their GP because the surgery is closed
•    can’t get an appointment when they need one
•    needs to see a GP or nurse but hasn’t registered with a surgery

Walk-in centres can be used when the health problem isn’t an emergency – the NHS advises that they’re not designed for treating long-term conditions or immediately life-threatening problems.

A GP explains what a walk-in centre is and the kind of problems dealt with there.

A GP explains what a walk-in centre is and the kind of problems dealt with there.

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What is a walk-in centre and what kind of problems are dealt with there?

Yes. Walk-in centres are mostly in big cities and they’re for dealing with urgent problems, usually minor illnesses, things like minor infections or minor cuts and sprains, things like hay fever. They’re run by nurses. You can walk in you don’t have to have an appointment.

Okay.

So they’re very useful for urgent care for small things, but they don’t have your records there and usually there isn’t a doctor there. It’s just a nurse lead service.

And so I’m guessing it’s similar to A&E, well within GP practices.

It’s a little bit like a minor A&E absolutely, but it’s not somewhere you’d go if you had a broken bone.

So if someone went into a walk-in centre and they actually needed medication or something, can someone prescribe them with medication or?

There’d be some limited things that they can prescribe. So they might be able to give them things like antibiotics for a bladder infection or cream for athletes foot or something like that. But they wouldn’t be able to give more serious or long-term medication.

If that was the case and they couldn’t be provided with medication, what happens after a walk-in centre appointment?

So two possibilities: one, if it’s urgent, that patient would be likely to be sent onto A&E.

Okay.

Or if it’s not something that has to be dealt with absolutely immediately, then the patient would be asked to go and see their own GP back at home.

Walk-in centres offer access to a range of treatments for minor illnesses and injuries, including:

•    minor cuts, bruises, burns, strains, insect and animal bites
•    stitches, wounds and dressing care
•    serious cuts or wounds and fractures  
•    infections, rashes, hay fever
•    stomach aches, vomiting and/or diarrhoea
•    blood pressure checks
•    emergency contraception (pharmacists can also help with this)

Peter hardly ever goes to the doctor’s as he’s usually healthy, but has sometimes been to a walk-in centre because he wanted to be seen by a GP that day. Same-day appointments are hard to get at his local surgery and sometimes there’s less of a wait at the walk-in centre. Auberon’s local surgery operates as a walk-in centre as well as a surgery for registered patients. He wished that there were more nurses working there so there’d be less waiting.

Auberon once waited 8 hours to be seen as a walk-in patient. The nurse speaks to every patient first and decides if they need to see a doctor.

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Auberon once waited 8 hours to be seen as a walk-in patient. The nurse speaks to every patient first and decides if they need to see a doctor.

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I think they could have slightly more nurses working in terms of a walk-in centre, because every time I go there, there was all the chairs…it was like fifty chairs and they always used to be packed and people standing around, and it was always packed. So I think there could be less waiting…for most I had to wait for a walk-in centre was something like eight hours; eight hours. 

Eight hours?

So, yeah, so I think there could be more nursing staff or… to minimise the waiting time.

So some of the people could actually see a nurse instead of the GP?

Yeah, because it's run… my GP's run by a… it's a nurse led clinic, so it's run by nurses. So every walk-in centre, you get you would see a nurse first. And then if the nurse thought it was necessary, they would ask you to see a GP. 

But on, at weekends, it used to be within the area if you're within the age range. But, however, if you are a registered patient there you can go and see anyone you like really, depends on your appointments. But if you are just a walk-in patient who's from a different surgery, then you need to go and see a nurse first, and then they will tell you what to do next.

Simon, who has juvenile arthritis and Crohn’s, usually sees the same GP when he has a problem. On the odd occasion when he couldn’t get an appointment at his local surgery on the day he needed one, he went to a walk-in centre instead: Hannah feels that getting an appointment with the GP has got harder over the years at her local surgery. She sometimes thinks about registering with another practice, which is less busy but slightly further away, but likes the GP she has seen all her life. When she couldn’t get an appointment for her son, who was 11-months-old at the time and ‘absolutely covered in chicken pox’, she drove to a walk-in centre. GPs provide ‘out of hours’ care for problems that can’t wait. They’re available in the evenings and weekends when a person’s usual surgery is closed. Private GP services are another alternative – information about these is usually available online.