Engage Consult is an online platform that allows you to contact the Practice via a link on our website.

You can use this service to request medical advice. Your request will be triaged and you will receive a message back from the Practice with details of your face to face or telephone appointment, as appropriate. Consultations using this service are now carried out in-house and no longer referred on to South Downs Health and Care.

Please ensure you complete all questions presented to you prior to submitting the consultation, to avoid having to resubmit information to us. We require this level of detail to be able to help you safely.

Please click the links for guides on how to sign up for and use Engage Consult.

Please note Engage Consult is open Monday to Friday between for medical advice 06:00 - 08:00 and 08:00 - 12:00 for administrative queries.

We offer a mix of pre-bookable and book on the day appointments.  These appointments are a mix of face to face or telephone consultations. 

Once all our routine appointments are gone for the day, our clinicians will telephone triage all requests for urgent treatment and advice.  If your problem is not urgent but there are no pre-bookable appointments available in an acceptable timeframe, you will be asked to call again opportunistically for a routine book on the day appointment.

Our receptionists are trained to ask you what you need to consult about, this ensures you see or speak to the most appropriate member of the healthcare team and also enables our clinicians to deal with telephone calls in order of clinical urgency.

In addition to our in-house clinicians we have other services at our disposal which you may be offered as an alternative to seeing or talking to an Arlington Road Clinician.  Please see below for more information about the Extended Access Appointments and the Community Pharmacy Consultation Service.

South Downs Health and Care GP Federation (SDHC) provides additional appointment capacity for all GP Practices in Eastbourne, Hailsham and Seaford as well as the Havens and High Weald.

The Extended Access Service (EAS) that they deliver is designed to help increase the capacity to talk to and see a healthcare professional. Appointments are available 7 days per week, 365 days per year.

The GP or Advanced Care Practitioner that you see or speak to will not be from Arlington Road but they will be a fully qualifed Healthcare Professional, who will be able to access your notes and will be able to issue a prescription if needed.

These appointments are bookable via our receptionists, you may be routinely offered one of these consultations and if not, you are welcome to ask to book one. 

Face to face appointments tend to be located at the SDHC Primary Care Hub at Hampden Park Health Centre, Brodrick Close.

We are also now participating in a new approach to improve access for patients to GP appointments. The aim is to direct patients to the most appropriate healthcare professional, which may be a GP or a pharmacist.

If your symptoms could be resolved by a booked consultation with the pharmacist instead of the GP, you may be offered a same-day referral to a pharmacy of your choice.

We think this is a good thing. Once you see how great your local pharmacist is – they are highly trained and skilled clinicians experienced in treating minor illnesses – we don’t think you’ll look back.

This will also help us to free up GP appointments for people with more complex health needs and ensure that everyone gets treated at the right time, by the right healthcare professional.

We are keen to hear what your think and will be listening to your comments and feedback about your experience of using this service.

Click here for some FAQs about the service

During Surgery Hours - Telephone 727531

If you are unwell and think you may require a home visit, please ring the above number before 10:30 if possible. Home visits will only be made where the clinician considers that there is a medical need. The clinician may ring back before coming to see you in order to obtain more details, as there may be a more appropriate way of dealing with the problem, such as a direct referral to hospital.

Pets and Home Visits

• Are you too unwell to attend the Surgery and require a home visit?
• Do you have a pet in the house?

 If you have answered yes to both of the above please consider the safety of our Clinicians and ensure your pet is shut in another room for the duration of the visit. You may not consider your pet to be dangerous, but pets can be unpredictable particularly if they feel their owner is under threat.  An examination by the doctor may be seen by your pet as a threat and they may attack, out of character, to protect. Our clinicians want to ensure that all patients receive the best care possible.  Please help them to deliver the best care by ensuring their safety is not jeopardised whilst they carry out your home visit.

When requesting a home visit our receptionist will ask you if you have a pet in the house and ask you to ensure that any pets are shut in another room before the doctor enters the house and is not released until after the doctor has left. 

Thank you for your co-operation.

Remember if you cannot keep an appointment or no longer need it please contact us to cancel it, you can do this by one of the following methods...

• Telephoning into the Practice and leaving an answerphone message on the appointment cancellation line at any time of day or night
• Telephoning the Practice during the working day and speaking to a receptionist
• Via Patient Online Services, if you have registered for this service.  
• Replying 'cancel' to your SMS appointment reminder.

As we continue to experience a high number of unattended pre-booked appointments we will write to you if you miss a doctor’s appointment. After three missed appointments it is the practice policy to only allow you to book appointments through the receptionists and not via Patient Online Services.

Please tell us:

• If you would prefer to consult with the doctor or nurse by phone, face-to-face, by video call or by text or email
• If you need an interpreter
• If you have any other access or communication needs

We have a texting service which allows you to receive confirmation and reminders about your appointments.

If you have provided us with a mobile number, you will automatically be signed up to receive appointment reminders.  If however, you do not wish to receive appointment reminders or other information via text message from the Practice, please complete our SMS Text Messaging and Email Opt Out Form.

Please remember to update your contact details with us when you change address, telephone numbers and email address.