From Tuesday 19th April our appointment system is changing. Patients will be able to choose whether they wish to be seen face to face or have a telephone consultation.

Acute appointments (same day) will be released at 8am for patients who are unwell and require same day assessment. There will be a limited amount of acute appointments (Book on the day) available daily. Once these appointments have been filled, it will emergency only appointments that will be available. In which case you will be asked to call back at 8am the next working day if your symptoms do not warrant an emergency appointment.

PLEASE NOTE that these appointments can only be booked via telephone and not at the front desk.

Routine appointments will also be available to book in advance. These will also be offered as a choice of face to face or telephone consultation.

Alternatively, we offer an online consultation tool called E-Consult which is suitable for many ailments or administrative queries.

We will continue to accept prescription requests via telephone in the short term. We would ask that these requests are made after 10am. Please also call after 10am for results, prescriptions can also be ordered via this website or by emailing simpson.scripts@nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk

Please click here for individual Doctor Availability

We also offer extended opening times on a Monday and Thursday till 18:30.

Our receptionists may ask you what your appointment is for - this is in order to give you the most appropriate appointment for your problem. You do not need to give a lot of detail, and if you prefer not to answer please just say so, this will not affect your treatment in any way. Please rest assured that our reception team are bound by the same confidentiality rules as the doctors and your privacy will be respected at all times. 

Please note; a standard GP appointment is fifteen minutes long. As such it is sometimes not possible to deal with multiple issues in one consultation, especially if they are more complex. If you have several issues to discuss, please tell the doctor at the start of the consultation so we can work out how best to use the time to help you. If you feel that your issue requires longer than fifteen minutes, please discuss this with reception when booking your appointment.

Each day there will be a clinician available to discuss medical problems with patients who feel that their condition cannot wait until the next available appointment. This clinician will assess whether the patient requires to be seen that day in the surgery, requires a routine appointment, a visit, or simply some advice or a prescription. The duty clinician will try to attend to requests as soon as possible but priority will be given depending on medical need. Please be prepared to give the receptionist a contact telephone number and a brief description of your complaint to allow the clinician to prioritise requests. Please phone before 10.00am where possible to speak to the duty clinician.

We do not operate a walk in surgery. If you walk in and ask to be seen, your contact details will be taken and the duty clinician will call you back for a telephone consultation in the first instance before deciding if you need to be seen that day. If phoning for a same day appointment, please phone before 10.00 where possible.

If you are too old or infirm to come to the surgery, we will visit at home. It is helpful if requests are made before 10:00. Please be prepared to give our staff some idea of your symptoms so that we can judge the urgency of each call when we visit. The duty clinician may speak to you first before deciding whether a visit is necessary. Children are usually expected to be brought to the surgery.

EMERGENCY requests for house calls are attended to as a priority.

You can also be visited at home by a community nurse if you are referred by your GP. You should also be visited at home by a health visitor if you have recently had a baby or if you are newly registered with a GP and have a child under five years.

It is important that you inform the reception staff if you are unable to attend your appointment, this will allow that appointment to be offered to another patient. If you fail to notify the Practice that you are unable to attend, you will be sent a letter informing you that you have defaulted from your appointment. Persistent defaulters maybe removed from the list.

You can also complete our appointment cancellation notification request form. This can only be used if your appointment has been arranged for more than 24 hours in advance. (excluding weekends and public holidays).

You can also text to cancel your appointment.

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

To have this service you will need to register by completing a consent form.

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