GP practice to pilot telephone consulting system

Company news

Jul 31, 2014

A GP practice in Brighton is piloting a telephone consulting system which it believes will lead to improved patient access to doctors, including many more same-day appointments.

Brighton Station Health Centre is run on behalf of the local NHS by Care UK, a leading independent sector provider of health and social care services. The centre provides a GP practice for registered patients as well as a walk-in centre, open every day of the year, including bank holidays, 8am-8pm. It is the registered practice which is to pilot a system used by GP surgeries elsewhere in the country called GP Access.

Jon Catterwell, service manager at Brighton Station Health Centre, said: “GP Access is a telephone consulting system developed by GPs for GPs. Put simply, the GP decides who needs to be seen. We know from extensive data that, of all requests to see a doctor, roughly 20 per cent are administrative in nature and can be dealt with by the receptionist and 20 per cent can be dealt with by the practice nurse.

“The remaining 60 per cent receive a call-back from a GP (almost always within one hour) and, of these, roughly 60 per cent can be resolved by a telephone conversation between patient and GP, while 10 per cent can be dealt with by the GP referring the patient to the practice nurse. 30 per cent require a face to face consultation and, given the capacity freed-up by the GP Access method, this can almost always take place on that day, if that is convenient for the patient.

“Feedback from other GP practices who have used GP Access is very positive. Some 70 per cent of surveyed patients say GP Access is better. Importantly, all patients that need to be seen are seen – normally on the same day. We will be monitoring the working of the system very carefully as we ideally want to eliminate the small number of people who elsewhere, for whatever reason, felt the system didn’t work for them.”

The pilot will start on August 18 and will be reviewed on a monthly basis.