The practice serves patients in postcode areas: DN4 0, DN4 8, DN4 9, DN5 (Spotbrough) and DN5 (Cadeby).
Out of Area Registrations
Since 2015 GP practices in England have been free to register patients who live outside their practice boundary area (or allow patients who move outside the boundary area to remain registered), with no obligation on the practice to provide home visits.
These arrangements are optional for GP practices.
The Scott Practice does not accept registrations from outside the practice area, neither are we able to keep patients who move outside our boundary area. The reasons for this decision are:
- Capacity - the need to be able to accept new registrations from within the practice boundary
- Potential fragmentation of community services from cross boundary working
- Registered practices remain responsible and accountable for the overall delivery of GP care to registered patients even though they are not delivering the care away from the surgery and have no choice of who provides the out of area care for their patients
- Potential conflict if disagreements in treatment plans arise where care away from the practice is given
- To mitigate risks of making decisions about individuals which could discriminate on the grounds of medical conditions when determining whether to register patients out of area.
The only exception to this is where a patient has any acute medical needs which the GP wishes to follow up on. In these circumstances patients may be able to stay registered for a short period of time until the acute phase passes or until treatment is stabilised, at which point the patient would then be asked to register with a practice that covers the area they are living in.