Improving primary care access through digital tools in south east London has been shortlisted for an HSJ Award
We are delighted to share that our work to improve primary care access through digital tools in South East London has been shortlisted for an HSJ Award in the Driving Efficiency Through Technology category. This recognises our efforts, and those of practices and partners, to improve access for people and communities across South East London.
Many people have experienced the 8am rush to get an appointment with their GP. Studies showed that patients in South East London were experiencing difficulty making contact with their GP practice, with 12% of patients reporting that were unable to contact their GP practice when they tried. To improve this, we worked with GP practices to identify the main challenges they faced when responding to patients; especially when patients call in large numbers in the mornings.
We want to make it easier for people to communicate with their GP practice and with this insight, we were able to develop a programme to improve patient access to GPs using a suite of digital tools. The tools were aimed at improving the efficiency of services and to improve patient care including:
- partnering with Accurx to support patients to contact their GP to request an appointment or consultation, and to enable GPs to easily communicate with patients to direct their requests to the best person in the practice to help.
- Promoting use of the NHS App as a digital front door so that people can have a single place to access the NHS to do things such as, send their electronic messages to their GP, receive messages from their GP practices, book and cancel appointments, order repeat prescriptions and view GP records.
- Partnering with Xon to so practices can use call waiting and callback functionality. It also gives practices key metrics such as number of calls, average wait, abandonment time and average call length, to help practices make it easier for people to access the best person in the practice to support them.
- Partnering with Healthtech-1 to pilot the use of automation for some administration tasks in GP practices. This means that patients can quickly register with a GP practice, so that they can more quickly request an appointment. This has also freed up time of practice reception staff to focus on other important tasks.
Dr Emily Ridley-Fink said: “being shortlisted for this prestigious award is testament to the value of building a strong partnership between the ICB, our technology partners, general practice and patients to tackle a difficult and persistent issue. Digital solutions can often bring great rewards for patients and staff and we’re delighted to be able to demonstrate a real and tangible benefit for people across south east London through these being used in practices.”
While the national survey results are not yet available for our post implementation period, we have received a lot of positive feedback from patients, such as the below:
- “It was very straightforward. I’m always daunted by online forms but it was easy.”
- “It was straightforward and I could manage to do this on my own.”
- “No queuing on the phone to speak to someone.”
- “Took 5 minutes as opposed to medical practice questionnaire which had copious repeated questions that took 20 minutes plus to answer.”
In addition, general practitioners have also provided positive feedback, including:
Dr Nayan Patel, GP Principal, Blackheath Standard Surgery said: “We have just completed a 3rd week of total triage. It is simply brilliant. I have had the best 3 weeks in – despite the pressure of implementation – for many years. I think with NHS APP and Accurx we have a digital solution that can be really important in allowing transformation in GP practices.”
The selected winners will be announced during the awards ceremony at Evolution London on 21 November 2024.