Online Consultation

Modern General Practice Model

We are using Patient Triage for convenient GP appointments. Submit requests online by 5 pm for a response within 24 hours. Addressing GP shortages, we leverage diverse roles like pharmacists, physician associates and advanced nurse practitioners. These roles are supervised by GPs for quality care.

Patient Triage streamlines requests, ensuring the right professional attends to each need while still under the overarching care of a Usual GP to ensure continuity of care.

Why we moved to Total Triage?
We are always looking for ways to improve what we do and ensure that we practise as safely as possible. This has become increasingly challenging over the last few years due to the national issues surrounding GP shortages.

The government, to help the GP shortages in the NHS, has funded additional roles: pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, care coordinators, social prescribers and more alongside the traditional nurse practitioners, all of whom we have at the surgery.

We have looked long and hard at what we can do so that our patients have access to their doctor when they need it. It. One such platform that would help us is Patient Triage. This is widely used in many GP surgeries all over the country.

How does Total Triage Work?
Let me give you some scenarios – you call up asking for a blood test to monitor a medication you are taking, and your neighbour calls up as she needs a letter to be completed by the doctor. Another patient is calling because she is having a drug side effect.
Another may be calling with chest pain and another with issues with ear wax. All of these at the moment are being booked in with the GP, and many of them don’t have to.
This clogs the system and those patients that do need to see a GP are not able to see them.
We have looked long and hard at what we can do so that our patients have access to their doctor when they need it. It. One such platform that would help us is Patient Triage. This is widely used in many GP surgeries all over the country.

Patient Triage Solves This Problem
Once you submit a form, this is then added to a list which a GP reviews. This means we have the most experienced person looking at what you have written and then they can safely ensure you see the right person.
In this way, we hope to be able to reply to your online query within 24 hours.
And, of course, we are aware that not everyone can access the internet or complete the form. Our patient navigators are trained to go through your questions and concerns and complete an eConsult on your behalf over the phone to make sure no one gets left behind.

With our current extended team, your blood test query could be actioned by our patient navigators. Our Medical Assistant could deal with the patient wanting a letter.
The patient with the drug side effects could be managed by our pharmacist. The patient with the chest pain would be seen by the GP, and the patient with the ear wax with the physician associate.

As you can see only one of the five patients needed to see a GP and this then frees up more capacity with GPs. It means the right patient is seen by the right person.

The trouble is most patients don’t ring up and say, ‘Please, can I have an appointment with your medical assistant?’ or ‘Please, could I have an appointment with your physician’s associate?’
Most people don’t know what one is, and that’s ok. These are really new roles so they are difficult to get your head around (but be sure that they are robustly supervised by our GPs)