Exciting Planned Change at the Surgery

Message from Trumpington St Medical Practice about an exciting new change at the surgery

Change Planned to Happen Next Week

On Tuesday 10th January 2023,  we will be moving to an online patient triage system.

This will operate in the morning only, for both urgent appointment and other urgent patient requests. Currently, patients have already been able to submit online requests for non-urgent appointment, and hence this is an expansion to streamline the management of urgent demand.

What is Triage?

Triage is a process where a GP assesses the urgency of a patient request (be it for an appointment or otherwise) and based on the urgency provides advice to the patient by text or phone call, signposts them to the most appropriate service or arranges the patient to be called or seen face to face by the most appropriate clinician / member of the practice team within the timescale they deem appropriate.

How does online triage work?

You fill in a short form provided on the Trumpington Street website and submit.

• You can find this form by clicking on the online consulting button here
• or can access it directly by going to AccuRx here.

This is the same for urgent or non-urgent requests.

If you don’t have access to the internet, or do not feel competent to do this, you can ring the surgery and a member of staff will help you fill out this form for you.

Please note they will need to ask you the medical questions listed on the form.
Once submitted the GP will review your request and take action as outlined above.

How Does This Improve Medical Care at the Practice?

The overall demand for urgent appointments, and medical services in general, has increased substantially over the last 6-12 months. As a result, the GP practices nationwide have found it extremely difficult to deal with urgent patient requests safely on a regular basis. By implementing this new online system, we anticipate to manage urgent demand better, respond to more patients and provide a safer service to our patients. Also, this will take the pressure away from our phone system which still continues to have issues.

When Do You Submit Your Urgent Request via the Online Form?

• If you need urgent help the same day you should submit your online form that day before 12 pm, but preferably between at 8 am – 10 am that same day.
• If you submit your form within 8 am–10 am, our target is to respond to you by phone or by text by 12 pm.
• If you submit your form between 10 am and 12 pm, and need urgent help, our target is to respond to you by the end of the day.
• If you require urgent help after 12 pm you will need to phone the practice.

Please note there is no triage for urgent requests after 12 pm and there may not be urgent appointments available to book later in the day. 
Under those circumstances we may need to redirect you to 111.

When Do You Submit Your Request via the Online Form if Your Request is Not Urgent?

Similar to before for those who have used this system. You can do this at any time from 8 am to 5.30 pm.

However, it would be better after 12 pm, when there will be less traffic on the system. We will attempt to action it within 2 working days.

What if I Need Urgent Help and Can’t Submit an Online Form?

If you don’t have access to the internet or don’t feel competent to submit a the form you will need to phone the practice for urgent or non-urgent requests.

Please Bear with Us

This is a new system for our practice and with any new system there will be a transition period with some challenges at first.

Please bear with us while we resolve these as soon as we can. Together we hope we can improve patient care for the better and we are grateful in advance for your patience in this matter.

Published: Jan 4, 2023