Patients will receive a home visit if:

• • The GP or nurse who provides their telephone consultation feels that they need to be seen and
• • travel to a treatment centre would cause deterioration in the patient’s medical condition or unacceptable discomfort.

Clinical judgement, based on the individual case presented, presides at all times and each case is assessed on its own merit.

Home visits are the best way of giving a medical opinion in cases involving:

• The terminally ill
• The truly bed-bound patient 

In most of these cases a visit would not be an appropriate use of GP’s time:

• • Common symptoms of childhood: fevers, cold, cough, earache, headache, diarrhoea/vomiting and most cases of abdominal pain. It is not necessarily harmful to take a child with a fever outside. These children may not be fit to travel by bus or to walk, but car transport is available from friends, relatives or taxi firms. It’s is not a doctor’s duty to arrange such transport.
• • Adults with common problems such as a cough, sore throat, influenza, back pain and abdominal pain are also readily transported by car to a doctor’s premises.
• • Common problems in the elderly such as poor mobility, joint pain, and general malaise may be best treated by the patient’s registered GP.

Department of Health standards

Urgent cases visited within two hours of telephone consultation.
Less urgent (routine) cases visited within six hours of telephone consultation. 

Urgent visits may disrupt the visiting schedule. Patients will be contacted by the driver in the doctor’s car who will provide an estimated arrival time.