Walk In / Telephone Triage

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We have seen an increasing demand on our service over the last few months. Pre-Covid, we operated a walk in surgery each morning between 8.30am - 10.30am where patients could present and add their name to the list to be seen in turn by a GP that same day. During Covid-19, in an attempt to reduce footfall into the surgery, we implemented a telephone triage service in place of the walk in surgery. This service has been hugely successful thanks to the technology that has been put into place, such as video consultations and the ability to text photographs to GPs. We are of course continuing to see patients where this is required.

Unfortunately, the telephone triage service has seen a vast increase in numbers and we fear that the service will become unsustainable unless we take action now. Our aim is to continue to offer a great patient experience which we feel is currently under threat due to the pressure on the service.

We have been finding that the list can often go beyond 1pm on any given day, which impacts heavily on the afternoon surgeries offered by our clinicians and time permitted for administration. For this reason we have no choice but to implement a restriction on the number of patients we can accept onto the telephone triage list each day.

If we reach capacity on any given day, we will only be able to make further appointments where the medical need is urgent. We will increase the number of routine calls which can be booked each day for medical conditions not requiring urgent attention. If for example you have an ongoing condition where it might be more appropriate for you to see a particular GP, we would strongly encourage you to book a future routine appointment. Services available:

• Telephone triage 8.30 - 10.30 (subject to capacity)

Our aim is to call patients between 9.00 - 12.00 same day. If clinicians have two failed attempts at contact, patients will be requested to call again to book another appointment.

• Routine calls - we have a number of routine appointments available to book each day.

Our aim is to call patients between 12.00 - 15.00 though timeframe is not guaranteed.

• Time allocated appointments - we have increased the number of routine appointments which are time allocated.

Whilst the clinician will make every attempt to call you at the allocated time, there may be instances where this is not possible. We ask you to be patient and have a degree of flexibility.

You may find it more appropriate to consult online which can be done via eConsult.

We can no longer accept generic emails sent to us for response by a GP, unless this has been requested by us. The email is not monitored on a regular basis.