Accessing healthcare during COVID-19

Accessing your GP

Find out how COVID-19 may affect using your GP surgery, and ways of speaking to a GP or nurse including in person, online, by phone and video consultations. 

Your GP is still there for you

It's important to contact your surgery if you feel you need to. This might be about your usual health issues or new physical or mental health concerns.

It's also really important that parents of babies and young children get in touch with their practice to arrange for their routine immunisations. Women who are pregnant or new mothers should also contact their surgery for routine appointments and/or if they're worried about their own or their baby or child’s health.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has meant, at times, that patients may be asked to contact their surgery online or by phone initially, rather than go in person, doctors are still able to see patients via video conferencing or telephone consultation.

GP surgeries working together

All GP surgeries have worked together to make sure that vital care has been available for people with illnesses and conditions other than COVID-19.

If you need to see your doctor or nurse, you may do this via a video or telephone consultation. If you need to be assessed in person and don’t have COVID-19 symptoms, you may be asked to go to a different surgery and be seen by a different doctor or nurse from your usual one.

This is because all the surgeries in Southwark have been working together to support each other to ensure that patients get the right care in an appropriate place for their needs.

What if I have COVID-19 symptoms?

If you have any of the main symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19), you should follow government guidance on what to do. 

It's important to follow any guidance your practice has in place to keep you safe and continue to follow the government’s COVID-19 guidance to prevent the virus from spreading.

Page last updated: 21 July 2023