Accessibility – about our surgeries

Welcome to the Village Surgery. We want your visit to be a positive experience. We understand that some of our patients may be anxious about visiting the surgery, or have specific needs. Here is some information that may help to make your visit easier. If there are more things we can do to help, please let us know by sending an online consultation, telephone or call in to the surgery.

Neurodiversity-friendly

Our staff are trained in neurodiversity and hidden disabilities, and you will find them willing to help in order to make your visit more comfortable. We have sunflower lanyard posters in all our waiting rooms to raise awareness of hidden disability.

 When you arrive – checking in

When you arrive at the surgery you have two options:

1. Check in with the receptionist. You will need to check in by giving your name and date of birth. There may be a queue.
2. Check in electronically. There are checking in machines on the wall at both surgeries close to the check in desks. You will be asked to confirm your date of birth and name. This is sometimes a quicker way to check in if there is a queue.

Harpenden surgery

Our Harpenden surgery is on two levels and you may be asked to wait either upstairs or downstairs, depending on where your clinician’s room is.

Upstairs can be accessed by stairs or lift . If you are a wheelchair user, or cannot manage the stairs and have a fear of lifts, please let us know when booking your appointment and we can arrange for you to be seen in a ground floor room.

Wheathampstead surgery

Our Wheathampstead surgery is all on the ground floor.  If you prefer to be seen at Wheathampstead instead of Harpenden please let our reception team know.

Sensory information

Our surgeries have background relaxing music playing in our waiting rooms. You may also see television screens with educational health messages on.

If you are noise sensitive, you may find it helpful to bring some headphones to wear.

Photos of our GPs

Under the heading ‘meet the team’ on our website front page you will find a photo’s of our clinicians.

Unable to Wait in Waiting Room

Sometimes sitting in a waiting room can be very stressful. For example, you may have a neurodivergent child who finds it difficult to sit and wait, or you may be immunosuppressed. Please let us know if you would prefer to wait in your car. You can provide us with your mobile number so that the clinician can call you to come straight into their room when they are ready to see you.

We want you to have the best possible patient experience at our surgery.

We are here to help so please do let us know if you feel there are additional measures we could put in place.