Registration Policy

Lensfield Medical Practice offers registration to patients who live at an address within our practice catchment area on an ongoing basis (longer than 3 months).

Temporary registration may also be offered for urgent treatment to patients registered elsewhere (excluding Cambridge practices), who are visiting an address within the practice catchment area.

The following patients are excluded from Registration:

1. Patients who have been removed from our patient registration list in accordance with our policy on inappropriate behaviour. (Exceptions may be made at the discretion of the Practice Manager and Partners if we are satisfied that the previous reasons for exclusion no longer apply.)
2. Patients who have been assigned to the Special Allocation Scheme.
3. Patients residing outside the practice catchment area (except for those registered at the practice prior to 2015 and who have not moved their current address).

Patients who move out of the practice catchment area will be asked to re-register at another local practice.

Our practice boundary exists to facilitate easy access to the surgery when a face-to-face consultation is appropriate, as well as home visits to patients when they are housebound (https://www.lensfieldpractice.org/join-the-practice-2). We therefore ask all patients who move out of our practice area to re-register with a local GP who would be able to provide timely and effective care, including home visits which we cannot provide out-of-area. We have found that it is usually helpful to establish a new relationship with a local GP before new health concerns arise, rather than have to quickly re-register with a new GP due to deteriorating health, especially during a new episode of investigation or treatment.

We appreciate that sometimes the requirement to change to another practice may feel unreasonable, especially when the new address is very close to our catchment area. However, the reason we must apply this policy to all patients alike is to avoid discrimination. We respectfully ask for your understanding and compliance.

We ask all patients to help us maintain accurate residential address information to maintain effective communication for safe care. Patients who do not respond to repeated communication sent to their registered address may be removed from the practice list.

Lensfield Medical Practice have taken the decision not to participate in out-of-area registration. (The NHS as a national service does allow registration outside local practice areas (https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/gps/registering-with-a-gp-outside-your-area/).

However, GP surgeries can choose whether or not to participate in this scheme (https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/gp-practices/managing-your-practicelist/out-of-area-gp-registrations-and-patient-choice). The NHS also allows GP surgeries to decline registration of patients out of the practice area due to patient numbers and/or inability to provide home visits.)

Our Patient Services Team will notify you that you will be de-registered from the practice list, 4 weeks before the de-registration comes into effect. We recommend that within those 4 weeks, you register with another GP closer to home before you are removed from our practice list, to avoid being without a GP.

You can search for a local GP at https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-gp.

If you have not already done so, you will be notified by Primary Care Service England that you will need to register with another practice.