Tests & results

Blood Tests

These can be booked in two ways:

  1. Online using the Swiftqueue website
  2. Over the phone by calling 02476 153546

There are a number of locations where you can have your blood test, one of these is the Health Centre building where the surgery is based – the building is ‘multi-tenant’, the surgery is one tenant, the Phlebotomy (Blood test) department is another.

The surgery cannot book your blood test for you.

If you are housebound and require a blood test, the surgery will arrange for someone to attend your residence. If you are not at home for any reasonable reason when the Phlebotomist attends, the surgery may consider removing the flag on your medical record indicating you are housebound.

You will need a blood test form to have a blood test – the clinician requesting you have a blood test, should have provided you with a form. If you don’t have one or need a duplicate, please let the surgery know in good time (please don’t wait until the date of your blood test appointment to check whether you have a form).

If your blood test is a ‘Fasting sample’, you should only drink water in the 12 hours before your appointment. You should NOT:

  1. Eat food (including mints (including chewing gum), cough drops, cough linctus or throat lozenges)
  2. Drink anything (except water)
  3. Smoke

If you have been asked to make an appointment with the surgery but a blood test is a pre-requisite, you do not need to wait to have your blood test before making your appointment with the surgery – you can book your appointment for five working days after the date of your blood test (i.e. once you know the date of your test, you can make an appointment for five days after that date – e.g. you are told on Tuesday that you need to make an appointment but need a blood test beforehand; on Wednesday you make an appointment for a blood test on Friday; you do not need to wait until Friday to make your appointment, you can call on the Wednesday and make an appointment for the following Friday (i.e. five working days after the date of your blood test)).

Getting your test results

 

To obtain a test result, please wait five working days from the date of your test.

You can view your test results:

  • in your online service account such as the NHS Account
  • phone or visit us after 11am (call 02476 315432 and choose option 3) – please do not call the surgery and use one of the other options to obtain your results, if you do this, you may be asked to ring back to option 3.

The surgery will not contact you about your results unless they require urgent intervention (please note – results requiring a routine follow up appointment with a GP are not classed as requiring ‘urgent intervention’).

Some results can be given out by Reception staff, others you may need a routine appointment with a GP to discuss. If the GP has not marked your result as requiring an action, you do not need an appointment with a GP to confirm this (given the finite number of appointments we have, please do not use a GP appointment just to obtain your results).

Unless we have documented explicit consent from the patient to give results to someone else, the person requesting the results has legal authority to act on behalf of the patient (i.e. a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) for Health & Welfare), or the GP deems it would be in the patient’s best interests to do so, we cannot give results to anyone other than the patient.

Questions about your results

If you want to talk to someone about your results, fill out our test results request form and someone will be in touch.