A number of services are provided from the Health Centre, including:

• Podiatry  
• Midwifery and Antenatal Care
• Physiotherapy
• Counselling

New Patient Medicals

Unless there is a medical need, only patients over the age of 16 need to attend for a new patient appointment with a practice nurse.

Health Checks

During a routine health check the nurses will monitor your blood pressure, urinalysis, height and weight and general lifestyle. If you are over 35 and haven’t consulted with a medical professional in the last 3 years, we recommend that you make a health check appointment. For those patients over 75 years, we recommend an annual appointment.

Pre-conceptual Counselling and Family Planning

If you are thinking of starting a family and wish to talk to someone about keeping fit and well for baby"s sake, please see your doctor in routine surgery or your health visitor. A full range of family planning services, including emergency contraception, is available. You may ask your doctor or nurse for advice at any surgery.

Antenatal and Maternity Care

An antenatal clinic is held every Friday afternoon. This is run by the midwives from Forth Valley Royal Hospital. Outwith the clinic times, the midwives can be contacted on 01324 566000 and asking for maternity. The Buttercup Team look after patients from the surgery.

Well Baby Clinic

The child clinic is held every Wednesday morning. A health visitor will be present to give advice, to perform development checks and to offer immunisations at the appropriate intervals.

Childhood Vaccinations

It is important that your children are fully immunised against all childhood diseases. Recall of children for immunisation and developmental checks are routinely done by the Health Visitors. Those who are overdue may be sent reminders. If you fail to attend your initial appointment you will be sent one further reminder. These are organised via SIRS (Scottish Immunisation Recall System). This is an externally generated recall letter. If you fail to attend two appointments your child will not automatically be called again. You should contact the surgery in this instance.

Holiday and Foreign Travel Vaccinations and Advice

To help protect against diseases contracted abroad please fill in a Travel Form available from reception with as much information as you can about your destination. We can then check the latest information about that country and advise you about any immunisations you may need. Some immunisations are required to be given many months before travel so please plan early. 

Yellow fever vaccination - The practice is a registered yellow fever vaccination centre and appointments for this immunisation can be made with the practice nurse. This vaccination is not available under the NHS and a charge is made. The practice will provide yellow fever vaccination to patients who require it, even if they are not registered with the practice. Please contact reception to arrange an appointment and state that you require vaccination but are not a patient of the practice. Standard charges apply to non-practice patients at a cost of £60 per patient vaccinated. This charge is not negotiable.

Minor Surgery

The practice undertakes minor operations to help save long waits for hospital treatment. You should make an appointment with your doctor in the first instance to discuss whether surgery is necessary. If so, the receptionists will add your name to the waiting list. We will aim to have you appointed within 4 or 5 weeks, but we cannot guarantee this. Appointments will be on a Monday morning.

Cervical Smear Tests

We prefer to do these tests ourselves, and a doctor or practice nurse of your choice can carry these out. Please inform the receptionist when you are making your appointment that you will be having a smear test.

IUCD Insertions and Checks

The practice offers a coil fitting and annual review service. Please make an initial appointment with Dr Birch to discuss. You will be given advice on the various methods of long acting reversible contraception and will be asked to make a further appointment to have your coil fitted, should you choose this option. Annual checks should be made in a single appointment with the doctor.

Medical Students

Visiting Medical students from Dundee University Medical School are attached to the practice for an introduction to general practice as part of their degree course. If at any time you do not wish a medical student to be present during a particular consultation, the doctor would of course respect your wishes. We also have nursing and health visiting students attached to the community staff within the practice.

Travel Information

The practice provides a travel service to patients.  To access this service please contact reception to get a travel form for each person travelling. 

Please then bring or send the form into the practice.  The receptionist will book a telephone consultation or face to face appointment for you with the practice nurse who will be reviewing your travel plans and advising you on vaccinations and medication that you will need for your trip. During this initial consultation the nurse will also arrange any follow up appointments for everyone travelling to have any necessary vaccinations and travel advice. 

Where possible please allow as much time as you can before you intend to travel to complete your form and return it to the surgery for assessment, as some vaccinations involve a series of vaccinations over a period of time.  If you do not give enough notice we may be unable to provide you with the necessary vaccinations. If this is the case will provide you with contact details for private travel clinics.

Please note that not all vaccinations are available on the NHS. An example of this is rabies vaccinations. Should you require these vaccination, you will be required to pay for a private presciptions for these, but we will advise you about this when you phone. Charges will be determined by the pharmacy. The practice will be unable to advise on the exact cost of these vaccinations.

The practice is a deisgnated Yellow Fever Centre and offer this as a private service at a cost of £60 per patient immunised.

There is further information about countries and vaccinations required on the links below

Europe & Russia	North America
Central America	South America
Carribean	Africa
Middle East	Central Asia
East Asia	Australasia and Pacific

Travel Clinic

Many diseases can be contracted from foreign travel and as more people travel abroad, especially to remote destinations, it is becoming common to see travel related illnesses presenting. Many of these infectious diseases can be avoided by taking simple preventative measures or with immunisation. The earlier that you can tell us of your travel plans, the easier it is for us to help you. Some immunisations, for example, Hepatitis A, can take several weeks until they start to provide protection and some immunisations can not be given within 3 weeks of each other. Anti-malarial medications usually need to be started at least one week before travel. Please allow yourself enough time.

Please note: 

If you leave it too late before completing this form we may struggle to provide the service to you. In the event that we are unable to provide a comprehensive travel advice service to you, we will offer you contact details of private travel clinics.

What you should do:

1. Fill in the travel form as fully as possible and return it to the Health Centre. One fully completed form will need to be completed for each member of your party travelling abroad that are registered with the practice. If any member of your party is not registered with Dollar Health Centre, they should seek advice from their own surgery.  

2. Hand the form back and arrange a face to face consultation or telephone consultation with a practice nurse in one week’s time. The practice nurse will have assessed your requirements by this point and will be in a position to offer you advice on your requirements.

3.  Attend your appointment  with any medication you have collected from the chemist. The practice nurse will administer any immunisations and discuss relevant health issues relating to your travel. Please note that if they pharmacist has advised that you must keep vaccinations in the refrigerator, it is essential that you do this. If you are unable to maintain an adequate cold chain, the health centre can make arrangements to store the vaccine for you until you attend your appointment.  

How you can help: 

It is important that we know your proposed accommodation and exact destinations within a particular country – and of any previous immunisations, which you have had outwith the Health Centre, which may not be in your current medical notes.

Even if you have travelled to a particular country before and think you are already covered, we still need to check as the distribution of various diseases around the world is constantly changing, and resistance to anti-malarial drugs is becoming troublesome in certain countries.

We access the Infection and Tropical Medicine Department for up to date travel information.

Charges:

If an NHS prescription is issued you will not have to pay any charge when you collect it from the chemist. If your prescription is issued on a 'private' prescription, the charge for this will be determined by the pharmacy. These include certain anti-malarial drugs. You should seek advice on the cost of these medications directly from the pharmacy. The surgery will be unable to provide you with a costing for private prescriptions.

If Yellow Fever is advised, a charge of £60 is payable to Dr Houston & Partners either by cash or cheque. No cards can be accepted. This is the charge for one person. If there is more than one person in your party that requires Yellow Fever vaccination, the cost will be £60 per immunised person.

Travel Form:

To download a copy of the travel form, which needs to be completed for each person travelling please click this link.

Travel form for completion by patients

Special Purpose Clinics - by appointment only

Antenatal - Friday afternoon 
Child Health Clinic - Wednesday morning
Minor Surgery - Monday morning (subject to availability)
Physiotherapy - Monday, Thursday and alternate Fridays 
Chiropody - Alternate Mondays & Thursdays
Phlebotomy and Blood Pressure -  Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday mornings

Chronic Disease Management

The practice nurses run clinics for the management and review of patients’ chronic conditions, including heart and respiratory conditions. If you suffer from any of these conditions you will receive a letter invitation to attend a clinic at the appropriate intervals. These run at various times throughout the week, however you don’t need to wait until you receive your invitation to attend. You can book an appointment at any time by contacting reception. Some of the reviews will require you to attend for a blood test prior to being seen in the clinic. The receptionist will advise of this when you are making your appointment.

Health Promotion

We are pleased to offer our patients a variety of health promotion clinics to encourage and educate them towards a healthier lifestyle. Please ask for a “lifestyle appointment” with a practice nurse.

Treatment Room

The treatment room operates Monday to Friday mornings from 9.00am until 10.30am. The community nursing team can be consulted for wound management, dressings, injections and ear syringing.

Medical Certificates

Absence from work due to illness for up to one week does NOT require a medical certificate from your doctor. You should obtain a self-certificate from your employer. Alternatively, you can download a self certificate by clicking here. Self certification is legally binding. Your employer MUST accept this as a form of notification of sickness absence for up to 7 consecutive days. If your employer insists on a medical certificate from a GP for absence from work from day 1 up to and including day 7, this will be classed as a non-NHS service and may be subject to a charge. Any absence over one week from work will need a medical certificate from your doctor.  

Non-NHS Services

Certain services provided by the doctors are not covered by the NHS and you may be asked to pay a fee. This fee will be in line with BMA recommendations. Examples of chargable services include pre-employment medicals, private medicals, insurance forms, private medical certificates, fitness to drive/fitness to travel certificates, access to medical records, disabled parking badge request forms and holiday cancellation certificates. This list is not exhaustive and charges for non-NHS work must be paid for either in advance or at the time of collection where the fee is the responsibility of the patient. If a fee for an insurance report or solicitors report requires payment, patients should note that the practice will not release reports to these companies, unless there are exceptional circumstances, until fees are paid.

Fees for non-NHS services are advertised in the practice. If you have any queries about fees or any other private medical services please discuss them with the receptionist or the practice manager.

We also have the resources to provide local employers with occupational health advice and assistance e.g. coping with stress in the workplace, managing change etc. Should you require this service, you should detail exactly what you require in writing to the practice manager. An assessment will be made of the nature of your request and a charge will be determined at this point.