What is active signposting? Active Signposting has been identified by NHS England as one of the Ten High Impact Actions and has been introduced throughout the Primary Care Sector to ensure that each patient is given access to the most appropriate health professional with the least possible delay.
Why does the receptionist need to ask what is wrong with me? This is done at the request of the GP Partners. Our Patient Care Navigators have received additional training to enable them to direct the caller to the most appropriate level of care or service in a safe and timely manner. The additional training received by our Patient Care Navigators has been designed to help them ensure patients are directed to the most appropriate care service for their needs.
What about confidentiality? Our team of Patient Care Navigators, like all members of the team are bound by confidentiality rules. Any information given to a member of the team is treated strictly confidential and the Practice would take any breach of confidentiality very seriously. All information given to our Care Navigators is documented within your records to assist the GP with your appointment.
Telephone Care Navigator Charter
Our Care Navigators
We will put the patient at the heart of our patient care. We will be polite, friendly and helpful at all times We will respond to your calls in a timely manner We will monitor our service performance through our live callboard and through measuring our average wait times.
Key performance indicators will be agreed for average wait times. These will be agreed after a full review of our telephone reports has been undertaken.
We will aim to deal with your call at the first point of contact whenever possible, however if there is no one available who can help with your query we will transfer your query to someone else or specify when we will get back to you with an answer.
Our patients We understand that sometimes you may feel angry, frustrated or upset and our staff will do their best to help you with the issue that is causing you concern.
However, we cannot allow our staff to be abused and our care navigators have been advised by our GP Partners to end a phone call if our staff are subjected to :
Threats or intimidation Being violent rudeness/being rude making nasty or abusive remarks swearing saying things deliberately to annoy our staff or cause offence to other team members
Our appointment system explained
Routine Appointments: All routine appointments can be pre-booked up to 4 weeks in advance, all GP appointments will initially be triaged and if a face-to-face appointment is required the GP will arrange this with you.
On-Line Appointments: The Practice offers the availability to book routine telephone appointments on-line. You will need to register for the NHS App for access to this.
Urgent Same-day appointments: The Practice operates a same day triage system for all urgent same-day requests. Please note these appointments are for those patients with ‘Acute’ symptoms that cannot wait until the next available routine telephone appointment.
Home Visits: The Practice offers home visit appointments for those patients that are housebound or palliative and are unable to attend the Practice. Requests for home visits should be received at the Practice by 10.30am on the day of the request. Please note Transport issues are not a valid reason for a home visit.
Nurse Clinics: All Nurse appointments are available to book up to 4 weeks in advance, with a mix of face-to-face and telephone appointments.
Clinical Pharmacist: Offers a mix of routine telephone and face-to-face appointments for medication reviews, medication queries and annual reviews.
First Contact Practitioner: Your first point of contact for any musculoskeletal sprain, strain or injury. Our FCP can provide a complete physio assessment, request medication and refer for further investigation.
Urgent appointments
The Practice operates a same day triage system for all urgent same-day requests. Please note these appointments are for those patients with ‘Acute’ symptoms that cannot wait until the next available routine telephone appointment.
The Patient Care Navigator will ask you a series of questions, as requested by the GP, to choose the most suitable doctor, nurse or health professional to help you.
Routine appointments
All routine appointments are usually available to book 7 – 10 days in advance, however there may be circumstances where the wait time may be longer. All GP appointments will initially be carried out over the telephone, this allows the GP to arrange any investigations and book a face-to-face appointment if this is required.
About your appointment
All appointments will initially be carried out over the telephone, it is important that you provide us with your most recent telephone number and ensure you will be available to take the call.
Cancelling or changing an appointment
Each month hours of GP and practice nurse time is wasted due to patients not turning up for their appointments, if they were cancelled, each of these appointments could have been allocated to another patient in need.
To cancel your appointment:
Phone the practice and select Option 1 where you will be asked to leave your details
Use your NHS account through the NHS website or in the NHS App
If you need help when we are closed
If you need medical help now, use NHS 111 online (111.nhs.uk) or call 111.
111 online is for people aged 5 and over. Call 111 if you need help for a child under 5.
Call 999 in a medical or mental health emergency. This is when someone is seriously ill or injured and their life is at risk.
If you need help with your appointment
Please tell us:
If there’s a specific doctor, nurse or other health professional you prefer to book with
If you need an interpreter
If you have any other access or communication needs
To access the online booking facility you will need to download the NHS App, this should only take a few minutes to set-up, should you need any help with this please speak with our Patient Care Navigators. You will then be able to make, cancel and rearrange your GP appointments online.
Home visits
The Practice offers home visit appointments for those patients that are housebound or palliative and are unable to attend the Practice. Requests for home visits should be received at the Practice by 10.30am on the day of the request. Please note Transport issues are not a valid reason for a home visit. Home visit requests will receive a phone call first to understand the reason for this request.
