As Winter descends and patients demand again escalates, we would like to remind our practice population on a number of issues regarding the use of the service.
• All requests are triaged based on the symptoms you enter onto the EConsults. We appreciate it if you answer all the questions thoroughly to enable a safe and efficient triaging process.
• We ask that all patients that are able to use Econsult do so to free up our telephones and Reception for patients who are unable to use these online services, or feel too unwell to on a given day.
• For patients attending the surgery to try and book an appointment, we are unable to confirm an immediate appointment or resolve a request immediately, as these all need to be reviewed by the Duty Doctor or appropriate clinician first.
• We aim to confirm an appointment for urgent issues within 48 hrs, but for all less urgent conditions the appointment may be given 1-2 weeks thereafter.
• Requests for routine appointments with our nursing team should be made by telephoning our reception and not via Econsult to ensure that the appropriate appointment length is booked at a mutually convenient date and time. Routine appointments are ECG or blood tests that you have been asked by us to book, regular or annual monitoring or reviews, childhood & adult immunisations, cervical smear tests & dressings.
• We appreciate all interactions with our staff, clinical and non clinical, to be polite and respectful please. We are aware that being unwell can cause upset, but this is not a reason to verbally abuse or be rude to our staff. We are a ‘zero tolerance’ NHS practice regarding all forms of abuse, trying to work under difficult pressure to provide the best service that we can.