Dear patient
Firstly we’d like to thank you for your patience and understanding during what has been an extremely challenging last 18 months. We have been working hard to offer you a good level of service and understand there have been occasions where you feel things haven’t gone the way you’d like them to.
We have taken on quite a bit of feedback from patients over the period of the pandemic into how we provide services to our patients. The way we provide care for you has understandably changed due to the impact of COVID-19.
We have though, remained open throughout the pandemic and have continued to see patients face to face when needed.
We have also added in new work streams to make it easier for other patient cohorts to contact a doctor or nurse. These include video appointments and text message communications which have both been warmly embraced and received very good feedback from our patients.
However, in line with instructions from NHS England we have had to change to a triage model whereby all calls are triaged at the point of contact before being assessed by a member of the clinical team. The clinician in charge then processes this and books an appointment based on clinical need and any potential COVID risk to other patients and staff.
I can assure you that reception staff do not make this call. All calls are discussed with a partner and assessed immediately. They are then dealt with based on clinical need and an appropriate time frame for an appointment is found.
We have found this system to work well in freeing up a lot of emergency slots on the day – resulting in patients with an actual emergency medical need, being able to see a doctor or a nurse on the day. Previously these appointments were being booked inappropriately at times.
Overall the response has been good and we will continue to review and improve our workflow systems to enable us to offer prompt medical care when needed. We are seeing a huge increase in clinical demand at the moment and are continually assessing how best we can service this.
We continue to see patients face to face when appropriate and will continue to assess how this can be best managed as the pandemic evolves.
Whilst the vaccination programme has been very successful and life is beginning to return to something like normal – a word of caution. We are unfortunately seeing quite a few cases of double vaccinated individuals contracting COVID-19 (in most cases the delta variant). It is for this reason that we continue to operate the way we do, with safeguards in place to keep both our patients and our staff safe. It has not been easy but we do this with the best of intent.
Please do remember that this virus is still looming and that is why we remain cautious.
Thank you for your feedback and I hope you find this explanation helpful.
The partners
TRP
Thank you
Dr Jonathan Christopher
