- If you have submitted a Klinik form this will take up to 6.30pm on the same day to triage. Please refrain from calling the surgery or resubmitting additional forms to chase the status of your initial submission.
With the introduction of The Modern General Practice model and the need to move away from the 8am call rush, we introduced Cloud Based Telephony. We audited the demand and capacity of our appointments as well as our telephone system statistics of the calls coming through to the surgery. Patient feedback and the National Survey data highlighted that patients are frustrated with the telephone wait times when contacting the practice. Not only were the queues long, but when patients finally got through, they were told that all the GP appointments were booked for the day. This caused frustration amongst patients, which was taken out on the reception staff and care navigators. Our trained care navigators would take the patient details to try to direct them to an appropriate service, but patients were still not happy this outcome.
Even with staff trained in Care Navigation, patients’ perception was that they always needed to see a GP rather than the most appropriate health professional. The feedback that we received suggested a lack of confidence in the care navigators’ judgement as they were not clinically trained.
By going to a Total Triage model, this allows patients to report their symptoms, ask questions, request tests or follow-ups via an online form which goes directly to the duty doctor. For those who are unable to complete the triage form, reception staff are trained to capture the information about patients’ needs and complete the form on their behalf. This allows the clinicians to triage patients and prioritise according to urgency. The clinicians triage all the incoming Klinik submissions and work closely with the GP Assistants. This saves the clinician a lot of time on administration duties. The GP assistants operate under the duty doctor’s directive to actively signpost patients to the most appropriate service or clinician.
Despite being on total triage, we will still prioritise:
Children under 5 years are classed urgent
Elderly (over 85) patients are classed as priority
Terminal Patients are classed as priority
Cancellations
If you cannot attend an appointment for any reason, please inform the practice at least 60 minutes so that the appointment can be offered to someone else. This can be done either via our automated phone system, email, Patient Access or SMS.
We try to accommodate patients’ preferred clinician requests, but if the requested clinician is not available or appropriate for issue, we may ask you to see another clinician. Due to greater clinical responsibility and high demands being placed on Dr Ali and Dr Kumana, patients may find that it is not always possible to see these doctors although we will try our best to make it a possibility.
If you are too ill to come to the surgery and you require a visit at home, please call the surgery or fill in an online form before 11am. Home visits take up much more of a clinician’s time than a consultation in the surgery, therefore if you are homebound, please call the surgery as early as 08:00 to arrange your appointment. The request for a home visit will be triaged by a duty doctor who will decide whether is it appropriate.