A Brief Introduction to Camidoc
Camidoc provides Urgent Medical Care for patients in Camden, Haringey, Islington, Hackney and the City of London between 6.30pm and 8am Mondays to Fridays and 24 hours at weekends and on bank holidays.
During the working day Camidoc may be providing cover for your GP practice but this varies from day to day so it is important that you call the practice first. It is not possible to make appointments with your practice or to get test results by calling Camidoc.
Camidoc is here to deal with medically urgent problems that have arisen while your surgery was closed, and which cannot wait until it re-opens. We will attempt to deal with your urgent problem, to help relieve your symptoms or assess whether you need hospital treatment.
It is important that you consult your own GP for follow up treatment if the problem has not resolved. Your own GP is also the best person to sort out any on-going problems.
Camidoc is not here to provide a second opinion, or to offer a consultation out of normal surgery hours because it might be more convenient. Callers without urgent medical problems will delay our ability to respond quickly to those people who have a genuine need for medical care outside of surgery hours.
How We Operate
Calls to Camidoc are answered by a telephone operator. To be able to process the call the operator will need to record certain details about the patient. They will need to know the name of the patient’s own doctor, if they have one. They will also need to know the patient’s name, address, date of birth and telephone number. Finally, they will want to know the reason for the call. No call can be passed to a clinician without all of this information.
Telephonists are trained to recognise emergency situations so that if an ambulance is required urgently, this can be organised without delay. They may also refer callers to an Accident & Emergency Department, particularly if the patient needs to have stitches in a wound or an x-ray. All other calls are passed to one of the clinicians who will telephone the patient as soon as they are free. This will normally be within an hour of the initial call.
Camidoc clinicians do not have access to the records held at the patient’s surgery. For this reason they will need to ask a number of questions about the current situation and may also ask for information about past medical problems.
The clinician will discuss with the patient the best course of action. This may be any of the following:
- Offer telephone advice
- Issue a prescription over the telephone, which the patient can then collect from their local chemist
- Ask the patient to attend one of our Primary Care Centres
- Arrange for a mobile doctor to visit the patient at home
- Organise admission to hospital
- Call an ambulance
The details of your consultation will be passed to your own GP and will be available by the next working day.