Minutes: October 2017

Present: David Bellamy, Chair of Littledown Surgery Patient Group
Emma Prince, Practice Manager
10 patients

1. Apologies: From 3 patients
2. Review of notes from last meeting – 18 July 2017
   We reviewed the notes from the last meeting.
3. Patient Topics to be discussed
   • Trying to get through by phone at 8.30am
     A patient raised the issue that it is sometimes hard to get through on the phone at 8.30am. Other patients said that they had not had this experience. Emma explained that we were reviewing the practice telephone system and were hoping to upgrade it within the next year or so. We hope that the new telephone system would have a queuing system so that patients don’t just get an engaged tone if both Receptionists are already busy on calls. In addition we hope that a new phone system would have the flexibility to allow additional members of staff to take calls during the very busy period 8.30 -9.00am to ease the rush. In addition a patient raised the fact that sometimes they call at 8.30am on the dot and our recorded message is still on. This is an automated feature that switches over when the system clock reaches 8.30am. Emma will check the system clock.
   • GPs calling patients to make appointments
     A patient was concerned about an experience he had had when ringing for a very urgent issue that he felt would obviously need an appointment, not just a telephone call. He felt having to wait for the GP to ring back just delayed matters. Emma apologized if the system had not been helpful on this occasion, but often there are issues that can be addressed over the phone so the patient doesn’t need to come into the surgery at all. The GP may be able to send a prescription straight to the pharmacy, or address the issue in another way. The reception staff do try to flag up telephone triage calls that they (or the patient) feel are urgent and those where they think the patient will have to come in so that the GP can choose to call those patients earlier on their telephone list. We will encourage the Receptionists to keep doing this, and mention to the GPs that this concern has been raised via the Patient Group. Emma did mention though that the feedback on the telephone triage system is largely positive, it is often something that patients comment positively on when we review our monthly patient feedback