If you are registered with a GP at the Health Centre, Station Approach, Bradford on Avon, make sure you inform the surgery that you live on a boat. The Health Centre welcomes liveaboard boaters as patients, whether or not you have a mooring. Staff at the Health Centre have dealt very sympathetically with boaters who are ill or injured who are exercising their right to stay for longer than 14 days in one place. The GPs at the Health Centre have provided written evidence of the illness or injury in cases where CRT has not accepted the need to stay in one place. This has included proof of the nature of an injury or illness where boaters are temporarily unable to walk across a plank and need to be moored where they can get on and off the boat easily. The Health Centre has not made a charge for these letters.
Everyone has the right to register with a doctor as a permanent patient, even if they have no fixed address. People without an address can register by using the surgery’s own address. If you collect your mail from a postal address that is outside the surgery’s catchment area, it is best to register using the surgery’s address; if you give an address that is outside the catchment area, you may be refused registration.
The Health Centre’s phone number is 01225 866611. See www.boahc.co.uk
Tags: Bradford-on-Avon, continuous cruising, doctors, Health, liveaboards