You can make an appointment online via the link at the top of this page, by telephoning us on 01271 323443, or by visiting our help desk in the main surgery building.

Important!  Please remember to make a separate appointment for each person to be seen, as appointments are 15 minutes when face to face and 7.5 minutes for a telephone call. This is to ensure we can best meet the demand on our services.

We have a range of appointment times available between 08:30 and 17:30, Monday to Friday.  Doors open at 08:15am each day. We are also open until 20:00 on Wednesday and Thursday evenings.  Appointments are available between 18:30-19:20 on these days.

All our phone calls are recorded for training and quality purposes.

All patients requesting any urgent same-day help (consultations or telephone advice) will be dealt with by the Urgent Care Team. This team of Doctors and Nurses will operate in a manner similar to a hospital casualty department, which means that people will be prioritised on the basis of need. 

The Doctor or Nurse will telephone you back to assess the problem and in many cases, they can help you there and then over the phone, alternatively if needed you will be invited in for a face-to-face consultation.

The Urgent Care Team will deal with urgent problems that genuinely require treating that day. People presenting to the Urgent Care Team with routine problems will be asked to make a normal, routine appointment for another time.

The Urgent Care Team can also help with minor illnesses, such as cold and flu symptoms, urine infections, D&V and ear infections. To find out more information and to see which minor illnesses the Urgent Care Team can help with, please click Urgent Care Team

We have touch screen computers in the reception/waiting room entrance area.  They are very straight forward and easy to use and require no computer knowledge at all!

Entering information requested on the touch screen identifies your arrival on our computer system which lets the doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals know that you are waiting to see them.

For patients’ convenience, we have an on-site branch of Jhoots Pharmacy.  In addition, there are several pharmacies in the Barnstaple area. Your local pharmacist will be able to give you free health and medication advice and you don’t need an appointment.

Home visits are reserved only for those patients who, in a doctor’s opinion, are unfit to travel to the surgery. 

This is because we have access here, at the surgery, to specialist equipment and investigations and the surgery is where we are able to provide you with the best care.

If you do think you need a home visit, please call the surgery on 01271 323443 before 11:00.  Details will be taken, and you will be asked to leave your telephone number so that the doctor can contact you if necessary.

If you think an urgent visit is required, you will be asked to speak with a doctor who will assess the problem.

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.

If you have booked an appointment with a GP, practice nurse or healthcare professional and are then unable to attend, please let us know either by telephone on 01271 323443 or by coming in to the help desk with as much notice as possible.

In just one week we can have up to 90 appointments where people have not attended and not given us notice.  These wasted appointments could, very easily, have been made available for other patients had we known in advance.

Primary care has the opportunity to extend the hours for patient appointments. This includes starting at 8am, evening clinics till 8pm and some weekends.

Litchdon provide extra evening GP and nurse clinics every Wednesday and Thursday with appointments available up to 7.30 and we take part in the rota across North Devon to provide some weekend Saturday GP appointments.

We continue to offer all our usual appointments during the week including our current evening clinics each week on a Wednesday and Thursday.

Litchdon patients can also use any of the evening and weekend appointments provided across North Devon run by other practices - just ask our Healthcare Administration Team who can book these for you.

There are also no changes to the Primary Care out of hours service, so for any urgent health concerns please contact 111 or 999 as before.

GP Registrars, Hospital Doctors & Medical Students

We are a training and teaching practice; one of our core values being the education and development of the next generation of doctors.

We see this as being extremely important and as such we run an active teaching programme for both undergraduate medical students and post-graduate doctors pursuing higher training to become specialists in general practice.  Also, we often have nursing and other health professional students based with us for a short time at the practice as part of their training.

We are very grateful to our patients for their active participation in this education, but if you prefer not to, please tell a help desk member of staff.

Video Recording of Consultations

As a training and teaching practice, there are times when you may be asked to allow your consultation with a doctor to be recorded. This is done discreetly and is for training purposes only. 

Video recordings are required as part of a GP’s training programme and assessment.  The recordings are confidential and will be deleted after use.

We hope that you will feel able to allow your consultation to be recorded, if requested to do so, but you may, of course, refuse either before, during or after a consultation is recorded, in which case any material recorded will be deleted immediately.