Brighton and Hove PPG Network

The website for Brighton and Hove PPG Network Members

Zoom Network Meeting on 28th May 2020 at 2.30 pm – Agenda Items Wanted

There will be a Zoom meeting on 28th May. N.B. The agenda has now been agreed.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Agenda item: Facilitating Patients self triaging.

    One of the long term problems faced by GP surgeries is that patients ask for appointments because they are worried about some symptoms they or a member of their family has and are not confident to judge the seriousness of the symptoms.

    Today surgery receptionists are trained to triage over the phone and make judgements about what needs to be done for the patient.

    If this training was made available for patients in some form might that not relieve pressure on surgeries because it would give patients more confidence in assessing the seriousness of their symptoms? This ‘training for patients’ could be made available on surgery websites?

    So my agenda item is to discuss whether or not this would be worth pursuing and, if so, who to approach about it.

  2. We need to distinguish between ‘self care’ and “self diagnosis“. We should, of course, be avoiding the latter.
    My sense is that the message from the surgeries is that they are open for business; if people have concerns about their health then they should use their surgery as usual. At the moment, and possibly even beyond the present crisis, some surgeries have introduced a triage system. Certainly, in terms of my own practice, triage is undertaken by medics and not receptionists. In fact receptionists, to my knowledge, have never triaged in the strict sense of the term. I would be concerned if there were instances across the city where receptionists were triaging.

  3. You are of course right Martyn. Receptionists are not doing the actual triage, even thought it is referred to as a telephone triage system and they take the call; they get a medically trained person to call back the patient. But I do believe that there is a case for ‘patient education’ to give patients more confidence in deciding whether or not they need to call the surgery in the first place. Two doctor friends, now retired, have both said to me in the past they wished their patients had more basic knowledge about symptoms – that is which are more likely to be a sign of problems that need medical attention and which can be left for 2 – 3 days to see if they resolve naturally. But maybe patient education ideas are beyond our remit?

  4. Following a recent surgery survey which some 600 patients completed, the most worrying concern was the ignorance, uncaring attutude of receptionists. It would be truly of concern if patients believed receptionists are short cutting the advice of a trained doctor.
    This is apart from the confidentiality and of course the legal responsibility of the practice. This is my opinion only at thus time but I believe the same view or similar will be held by most patients.

  5. Hi Mark, recently I produced a newsletter for our surgery Warmdene. Copied to Martyn and he suggested you may want to put it on the website as an indication of good practice. Perhaps it is an item for the Agenda 28th May meeting. In the mean time, please advise me how to send it to you i.e., email??
    Best regards
    Michael Whitty
    07710 521214

    Hi Michael – I’ll email you separately about how to send me your newsletter. Regards, Mark (don’t want to trigger another reply notification hence just updating your reply).

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