Overwhelmed by excess demand for on-the-day appointments, Firs House surgery has amended its proposed system for booking appointments online to help deal with the intense pressure on medical services. This pressure has led to the surgery having to suspend its new online Patient Triage platform for at least some hours each day to give staff time to assess the medical requests submitted.
Concerned that misinformation about its new system was being discussed on social media, the surgery clarified that the system wasn’t faulty, “This is the same process that was used when the telephone booking system was at capacity”, they explained.
Originally it was intended that the online platform would also be open for bookings overnight and during weekends, but this will no longer be the case – even after the current capacity crisis is over. Based on experience in other surgeries, Firs House expects the number of potential appointment requests would then be too great to enable them to prioritise on the next working day.
Improvements
Despite the capacity issues, the online appointment booking platform introduced by Firs House at the start of the year has been effective at improving wait times for priority appointments. And it has been signalling alternative healthcare providers when medical services aren’t available or required, enabling medical staff to reach the most urgent cases sooner. Experience at other surgeries suggests that as many as 1 in 5 requests could be signposted elsewhere as the system settles down.
Also, although the booking system has had to be suspended each day at some point during the morning, it has on some days been reopened briefly in the afternoon if any appointments are still available. When all bookings were coming in by phone, patients were normally told to try again the following day.
“A little bit of tolerance”
The expectation, based on experience elsewhere, is that it will take at least three months for Firs House and the community to get into their stride and use the new system to its best advantage.
In recent days feedback from surgery staff as well as patients confirm it is now working far better than first-past-the-post telephone systems without any triage capability. One patient posted on social media “I prefer this new system and am very grateful that Firs pursued a different system when the phone system wasn’t working. I completed the form yesterday and spoke with a doctor today.” Another commented “My wife and I have had excellent responses [to an online request] so far, with medication prescribed, and non-urgent appointments set up for next week.”
Some social media comments have been critical of the surgery, but others have recognised the huge pressures they are working under and defended it. One patient pointed out “In a nutshell, too many patients need the services of the local GP team, which it simply doesn’t have the resources to meet. If we want to complain, then maybe to higher authorities than Firs/Telegraph Street may be a way forward.”
Another person called for the community to “be a bit tolerant of initial teething problems.” Someone posted: “We need to be patient while [the system] beds in and the staff get used to it. It’s always hard when a new process and system are introduced, especially if it gets swamped like today. I have a friend in Haddenham whose GP surgery uses this and has for a while. She says it’s way more efficient that the first come first served on the phone system.”