Improvements to our Appointment System from 23/10/2015
Here at The Practice we met with the Patient Participation Group to seek a solution to your concerns with the current appointment system. We want to make changes which will help you. We agreed that using a *Nurse Practitioner should improve things. Requests for urgent appointments will now be dealt with using a *Triage approach. We believe this will make “same day booking” more manageable, and will also increase the number of advanced bookable appointments for GPs.
We are pleased to announce this new Appointments System – which will begin this Wednesday, 28th October.
The key points:
• You can now ask for a “Pre-bookable Appointment” each day of the week, (rather than only on a Monday). These will be available up to seven days in advance.
• You can still request urgent same day care. The Nurse Practitioner and GPs will *triage these requests
• The Nurse Practitioner (or a GP) will call you back asap to discuss your needs. You will then be seen by the appropriate GP or by the Nurse Practitioner.
• If you see the Nurse Practitioner, but you require GP intervention, a GP will always be available to take over your care at that point.
• By implementing *triage appointments, we will free up extra pre-bookable appointments with GPs. This will improve your chances of choosing which GP you wish to see.
* Triage: the process of assessing patients and deciding how best to meet their needs
* Nurse Practitioner is a Nurse who has undertaken special additional education in order to provide advanced nursing care and prescribing.
**NB – You will still be able to book pre bookable appointments online but will need to telephone for urgent same day care
The Nurse Practitioner is qualified to see people with any of the following conditions:
Bites & Stings
Burns
Cold Sores
Colds, Flu & Nasal Congestion
Conjunctivitis
Constipation
Cough
Mouth Ulcers Ear Ache
Emergency Contraception
Eye Infection
Hay Fever
Head Lice
Heartburn&Indigestion
Impetigo
Cystitis Rash
Scabies
Sinusitis
Sore Throat/Tonsillitis
Vaginal Thrush
Urinary Tract Infections
Oral Thrush
We sincerely hope that these changes will make Appointments easier for you to access. There may well be some initial challenges for us all to cope with, and we ask your support as we deal with any hiccups. Please feel free over the next few weeks, to send us your feedback and comments about the new system. We will be listening.
