Flu and covid booster clinics

The seasonal campaign for flu and covid booster vaccinations is under way.  We are offering community clinics on Saturday 10th October and Saturday 24th October at the Poringland Community Centre between 9am and 1pm.  No appointment needed.  A number of our clinicians and support staff will be present those mornings to offer vaccination to help our patients remain safe and well over the autumn/winter period.  Click here for the NHS website to check your eligibility for flu vaccine and here for covid boosters.  For those who can not make these dates, we are offering clinics in Practice, which can be booked via our reception team.

Changes to our appointment system - October 2026

To help manage anticipated autumn and winter pressures, we are making some changes to our appointment system.  We have been working on a plan for the past few months and consulted with patients and staff.  Click here for an information leaflet on the changes. 

You and your General Practice 

Click here for the NHS England guide to what you can expect from your GP Practice and how you can help us to ensure you get the best from the NHS.    

Online services - access to services via our online services portal is available Monday to Friday 8am to 6.30pm.  Use the Online services tab on our home page to access the portal or click here.  

Access to the surgery.  We offer access to surgery services between 8am and 6.30pm.  Please see the opening times tab for details. 

A welcome from the Partners

Thank you for visiting our Practice website which we hope will provide you with a taste of the services available at our main site in Poringland and our branch surgery in Rockland St Mary.  Use the tabs to find out when we are open, how to reach medical services when we are closed, see the area we cover and learn more about the team at the Practice. 

You can order a repeat prescription on line, book and cancel appointments using our extended on line services, send us your comments (via the contact details tab) and tell us what you think of the services we offer through the Friends and Family Test. 

To register as a patient, you can visit either of our surgery sites where we will help complete the registration formalities.  The Heathgate team is committed to providing the appropriate care, at the appropriate time in the appropriate setting, working with you in the management of your health and wellbeing.   

Practice values

The Practice has a core set of values that are at the heart of everything we do.  They underpin our policies, objectives, procedures and strategies.  They also help us establish our behaviours.  The values were created and agreed by the whole Practice team at a staff meeting in Spring 2015 and are reviewed each year.  There are 5 simple values.    These are to be:

• Professional
• Caring
• Effective
• Flexible
• To have integrity in everything we do.

We hope you will recognise these values in your relationship with us.

Your views count

Friends and family questionnaire - this is the questionnaire, patients can complete about the service we offer.  It allows patients to comment on the experience they had with us and advise us of anything we could have done differently.  Here are the results for the year to date (April 2025 to March 2026).  Click here for details.     

Healthwatch Norfolk spent a day with us again in October 2025 gathering patients views on the services at the Practice.  Click here for a summary of their findings and read their full report.  Thank you for your comments and to Healthwatch Officers for spending the day with us.  

You can also see the results of the national GP patient survey about the Practice by clicking here.   

Accessibility standards

For all organisations that offer NHS or Adult Social Care, compliance with The Accessible Information Standard, became law on 31st July 2016.  The standard aims to provide people who have a disability, impairment or sensory loss with information about their healthcare in a way they can easily understand.

This means that where possible we will provide information to patients in different ways.  For example if you would like us to write to you in a larger font, then we can do this.  If you need an interpreter in a consultation, with sufficient notice, we can arrange this and we are exploring with NHS England the options around providing information in braille.

Whilst we will be asking patients if they have information or communication needs, you can let us know by completing the online form under the Accessible Information tab to your right.  You will also find information in that section of our website on how to change the colour and font size of our website content.     

Aware of such needs, if we need to refer you for specialist care, we will pass this information onto the healthcare provider as part of the referral that we make.

Your accountable GP

Our contract with NHS England requires us to advise you of your named 'accountable GP'.  The named individual is the GP designated to take overall responsibility for your care at the Practice ensuring that services are offered and delivered to you at the appropriate time.

You will recall that when you registered with us you were also allocated a 'registered GP', and having discussed this matter with our patient reference group, there was strong support for not confusing patients advising them of another named individual; when most people are happy with the way we offer both continuity of care and choice of clinician to our patients.

We have produced a leaflet which explains our plan to meet out contractual obligation with NHS England.  Click here for a copy.  The leaflet is available in hard copy from our reception desks at both sites with notification of this approach on the top of your repeat prescription listing.