Where are we?
If you need to see the doctor or nurse you will be given an appointment to attend the Bedoc Centre at Bedford Hospital South Wing. Go to the main Outpatients entrance (near Accident and Emergency) and ask for Bedoc. You will be seen by the duty doctor or nurse and treated accordingly.
Details of your consultation will be forwarded to your own doctor the next working day.
Please do not go to the Bedoc Centre unless you have an appointment.
Patients that are seen at the Bedoc centre are either those that have been given an appointment or those transferred from Bedford Accident and Emergency Department. It may be therefore that patients that booked in after you had appointment times arranged for them. Patients will also be seen depending on their presenting symptoms, so a patient presenting with more serious symptoms may be seen before a patient with less serious symptoms who arrived first. Bedoc employs both Doctors and Nurses; most patients can be seen by either a Doctor or a Nurse, however there will be some that will need to see a Doctor due to the nature of their symptoms. This again may influence the order in which patients are seen.
Is transport provided?
Bedoc does not provide patient transport. If you are considered well enough to travel but do not have your own transport you will need to ask a relative or friend to bring you to the Bedoc Centre or travel by bus or order a taxi if it is too far to walk.
Home visits?
The duty doctor will decide if a home visit is appropriate. Home visits are usually only made for terminal patients or if the patient is too ill to travel.
Prescriptions?
Bedoc prescriptions will need to be taken to a Pharmacy in town as the hospital pharmacy is only open during office hours and is not able to take GP prescriptions.
If the Community pharmacies are closed and the doctor agrees that you need treatment before the Pharmacy re-opens then your prescription may be dispensed by the Accident & Emergency department nurses from a limited supply of emergency drugs.
Requests for repeat prescriptions cannot be dealt with out of hours.
Dental problems?
Most dentists provide Out of Hours cover like doctors so the first thing to do is to contact your own dentist. The Dental Access centre at Bedford Hospital North Wing 01234 310210 operates an emergency dental service for people who are not registered with an NHS dentist.
