Reception Appointment Changes
December 2014
As you will have read in the media Primary Care is
under huge pressure and demands for both
routine and urgent matters and Hartley Corner,
like other surgeries in the area, is no longer
immune to that pressure.
This is due to:
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An ageing and increasing population
Movement of work from hospital clinics to
surgeries
Increased management of chronic diseases
Rising patient expectation
Many GPs and other staff across the country are
looking to retire early and finding young doctors
who want to work in General Practice rather than
Hospitals is becoming harder and harder. 3 out
of 5 of our last Registrars have moved to work
abroad.
We have had to modify our system to try to
meet demand and to continue to provide high
quality care.
CHANGES:
Routine Appointments & routine
Telephone Appointments are always
bookable up to 14 days in advance.
(Any longer than that meant that we had too
many wasted appointments where patients did
not attend)
A small number of routine appointments open up
in a gradual way to release into the system every
day.
Some patients have expressed the view that the
deterioration in appointment availability has
been because Dr Jones is no longer overseeing
the running of the practice. This is categorically
not the case. Dr Hinton has been the acting
Senior Partner since 1st April 2012 and the
current crisis is due to increasing demand on an
overstretched system and in no way reflects any
change in the management at the practice.
We can assure you that many local practices
across the locality from Crondall to Fleet to
Farnborough, Aldershot and Farnham are all
experiencing this kind of demand.
It’s not a perfect system, but it is the best we
have at the moment.
You can help in small ways too:If the GP asks you to make a follow up
appointment with them, don’t phone up on the
day expecting to be able to get a routine
appointment – book that up 2 weeks in advance
so you’ve got it in your diary.
Don’t leave requesting a prescription until you
have run out of medication. Put your request in
at least 3 working days before you need your
tablets.
Use your Pharmacist for advice and for over the
counter medication.
If you have had a test performed, make sure you
telephone for your result (after 11:30am please
and avoid Mondays if possible)
Ensure elderly relatives visiting you bring their
medication with them from home.
At least this way a small number of routine
appointments are releasing into the system on a
daily basis which the receptionists can book,
otherwise everything would be booked up two
weeks ahead.
Use your Health Visitor for advice on the Under
5’s: Feeding difficulties, colic, hearing difficulties.
Contact them on 01252 813842
EMERGENCIES: We also have to allow time within
the day for the GPs to deal with emergency
matters that arise daily and therefore this also
impacts on the time available for routine
appointments.
These are small things, but they all add up to us
being able to use resources efficiently with less
waste or unnecessary time pressure.
Emergencies are now triaged by the Doctors and
Triage Nurse. They will call the patient back and
then either book them into a timed emergency
appointment, or arrange whatever else is
necessary to sort out the problem.
If you cannot attend an appointment please
cancel so that the appointment can be given to
someone else.
THANK YOU
Hartley Corner Surgery GPs & Team
PTO