For patients who want the practice on standing terms: membership includes four GP consultations a year, the annual Hollybank Health Check at half fee, same-day telephone access to a clinician, and ten per cent off all diagnostics. It is £48 a month per adult, £26 for a second household adult, and children under sixteen are covered free with a member parent. There is no joining fee and you can leave with a month’s notice — memberships that trap people are not the kind of relationship we are in.

You pay after the appointment, by card at the desk or by invoice the same evening — never in advance. Medical care is VAT-exempt, so the fee on the list is the whole fee; the only exception is an occupational medical done purely for an employer, and we say so when you book it. Insured patients: we are recognised by Bupa, AXA Health, Aviva and Vitality, and invoice the insurer directly where your policy allows; bring your authorisation code. If a consultation ever finds a reason for an additional check, the fee is quoted out loud in the room before anything is done. Since 2011, no Hollybank patient has opened an invoice and found a number they had not already heard.

A short phone call after your appointment to ask the thing you forgot to ask. The follow-up call with your results, however long it takes. A blood-pressure check at the desk between visits. Rebooking, however many times life makes you. The fifteen-minute look-round before you decide to register, and the cup of tea that comes with it. And any appointment we start more than fifteen minutes late — that one comes off the invoice, as it has since 2011. A practice charging by the minute for reassurance stops being reassuring; the fee list is for medicine, not for talking to us.

Life happens; we plan for it. Cancel or move an appointment with more than four working hours’ notice and there is nothing to pay, however often it happens. Inside four hours we charge half the consultation fee, because the slot was held for you and someone else wanted it — though the first time is always waived, and so is anything cancelled for an emergency. Arrive late and we will still see you for whatever time remains of your slot at the full fee, or rebook you at half. And if we run late — more than fifteen minutes past your time — the appointment comes off your invoice.