Clinical Triage – Updates

Continual improvement

After the previous two week’s record achievements we settled down to achieving a healthy 1,674 patients this week. We were down in clinical capacity but the team, coming in every day to help make our patients’ lives better, did phenomenally well once again. We continue to explore every facet of our operation in order to provide a better service – and it’s working.

This week saw us being able to offer 90% of the patients being put on the daily waiting list to have a consultation.

• 402 patients called the Clinical Triage line
• 61 were asked if they wanted to be put on the daily waiting list.
• 55 patients from the waiting were called
• 31 patients were triaged through the Urgent on the Day facility

The Clinical Triage initiative continues to prove evidence that the Urgent-on-the-Day lists are reducing.

Ordering prescriptions online

The online Prescription Request initiative remains to be popular and that is resulting in a lot of telephone calls that don’t have to happen – and that frees up the appointments line, and takes some of the patients away from the prescriptions line.

Of course the most efficient way of getting your prescriptions ordered is through Vision Patient Services because that feeds directly into our clinical system and allows the patient to see exactly what is on their current and repeat prescription lists. It’s really easy to use and applying for registration is just as easy. Check out the following links:

• Look at the videos showing exactly what the service is all about
• Apply to the Practice for registration details
• Then get your letter with the 3 important pieces of information for you to register
• Then register
• Once you have registered and have a username and password you can then login

If you are using our online form then we’ll probably contact you in order to get you moved across to the service.

Our statistics

Here are some of the main points for the week:

• This week saw us consult with 1,674 patients,13.45% of the Practice population, and that included 815, 49% of this week’s consultations as Face to Face contacts.
• Looking back over the past two years, in this week of each calendar year, and comparing like for like our patient contacts were:
  • 974 in 2021 (42% fewer than 2023)
  • 1,281 in 2022 (23% fewer than 2023)
  • And this week our forecast already shows that we have processed 46.07% of 2022’s achievements.
• We processed 50 MED3 Fitnotes through our web forms.
• We processed 26 Prescription requests through our web forms.
• Remember to contact us using the web form if you need to cancel your appointment because we can offer the appointment to other patients on the waiting list. Click here to find out how to cancel your appointment.
• We got 12 more patients on Vision Online Patient Services and so they will be able to order their prescriptions online – and this feeds directly into our clinical system. Check out our website for more information on Vision Online Services.
• We received 8 Subject Access Requests; ranging from patients wanting the results of their tests to full copies of medical records.
  • Find out more about Subject Access Requests on our website.
  • Find out about how to access your test results on our website.
• It was great to see many of our patients completing the Epilepsy Review form, which in turn allows us to keep an accurate record of the patient’s health.
• We’re still working on an online Home Blood Pressure Monitoring form to allow patients to submit daily or weekly average readings. More to follow.
• Once again we’d like to thank all patients for their patience and understanding last week.

Going into next week, our clinical capacity is at 87% with our GP capacity being 76%.

Pharmacy

It would be remiss of us not to mention the ongoing and tireless work carried out by the clinicians and Pharmacy team to process the plethora of prescriptions and medication items.

Document Management

And in the month of May our Clinical Administrative team processed 7,600 patient documents including:

• 67 Accident and Emergency reports
• 55 Ambulance patient reporting forms
• 453 general administrative letters
• 1,685 Clinical letters
• 482 Outpatient medical notes
• 43 Patient registrations
• 1,019 referrals
• 704 results reports
• 379 unscheduled care reports
• 153 photographs
• 40 backscanned patient records
• 102 consent forms
• 89 emails

Recalls

We sent out over 450 recall letters for the month of May, and sadly over 120 did not answer and make the requisite appointments. Sending recall letter are costly and we are looking at more efficient methods of calling our patients for their annual reviews.

Clinical Capacity

The chart below show our overall clinical capacity, ie our doctors, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Practice Nurses, and Healthcare Assistants in relation to our GP availability. The fluctuation in general clinicians’ availability is illustrative of the percentage of our total capacity in relation to absences (planned as well as sickness); and the availability of GPs.

We are showing that we never have 100% of the GPs that we would like to have; and so when one goes off at short notice, for any reason, the week becomes challenging. We have planned for Locum coverage, but that is not always available. In order to balance the requirement we have invested heavily in upskilling of our Advance Care Practitioners and senior Practice Nurses, many of whom are independent prescribers, as well being particularly adept in many fields, and take a significant amount of routine work from the GPs; which has the additional benefits of freeing up the GPs’ time to look at the more complex cases.

This chart shows our clinical capacity from May – Dec 2023

Continual improvement

After last week’s phenomenal achievement we couldn’t have believed that we would surpass that amount of patient consults – but we did!

This week saw us consult with 1,925 patients, 10 more than last week – and an all time 3 year record. We were still down clinicians and we adapted accordingly. Your Medical Practice Team worked with a quiet and unassuming efficiency and we are so proud of them.

This week saw us being able to offer 77% of the patients being put on the daily waiting list to have a consultation.

• 425 patients called the Clinical Triage line
• 58 were asked if they wanted to be put on the daily waiting list.
• 53 patients from the waiting were called
• 40 patients were triaged through the Urgent on the Day facility

The Clinical Triage initiative continues to prove evidence that the Urgent-on-the-Day lists are reducing.

Ordering prescriptions online

The online Prescription Request initiative remains to be popular and that is resulting in a lot of telephone calls that don’t have to happen – and that frees up the appointments line, and takes some of the patients away from the prescriptions line.

Of course the most efficient way of getting your prescriptions ordered is through Vision Patient Services because that feeds directly into our clinical system and allows the patient to see exactly what is on their current and repeat prescription lists. It’s really easy to use and applying for registration is just as easy. Check out the following links:

• Look at the videos showing exactly what the service is all about
• Apply to the Practice for registration details
• Then get your letter with the 3 important pieces of information for you to register
• Then register
• Once you have registered and have a username and password you can then login

If you are using our online form then we’ll probably contact you in order to get you moved across to the service.

Our statistics

Here are some of the main points for the week:

• This week saw us consult with 1,925 patients,15.46% of the Practice population, and that included 919, 48% of this week’s consultations as Face to Face contacts.
• Looking back over the past two years, in this week of each calendar year, and comparing like for like our patient contacts were:
  • 1,066 in 2021 (45% fewer than 2023)
  • 1,483 in 2022 (23% fewer than 2023)
  • And this week our forecast already shows that we have processed 43.96% of 2022’s achievements.
• We processed 45 MED3 Fitnotes through our web forms.
• We processed 34 Prescription requests through our web forms.
• Remember to contact us using the web form if you need to cancel your appointment because we can offer the appointment to other patients on the waiting list. Click here to find out how to cancel your appointment.
• We got 18, same as the previous week, more patients on Vision Online Patient Services and so they will be able to order their prescriptions online – and this feeds directly into our clinical system. Check out our website for more information on Vision Online Services.
• We received 13 Subject Access Requests; ranging from patients wanting the results of their tests to full copies of medical records.
  • Find out more about Subject Access Requests on our website.
  • Find out about how to access your test results on our website.
• It was great to see many of our patients completing the Epilepsy Review form, which in turn allows us to keep an accurate record of the patient’s health.
• We’re still working on an online Home Blood Pressure Monitoring form to allow patients to submit daily or weekly average readings. More to follow.
• Once again we’d like to thank all patients for their patience and understanding last week.

Going into next week, our clinical capacity is at 97% with our GP capacity being 76%.

Clinical Capacity

The chart below show our overall clinical capacity, ie our doctors, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Practice Nurses, and Healthcare Assistants in relation to our GP availability. The fluctuation in general clinicians’ availability is illustrative of the percentage of our total capacity in relation to absences (planned as well as sickness); and the availability of GPs.

We are showing that we never have 100% of the GPs that we would like to have; and so when one goes off at short notice, for any reason, the week becomes challenging. We have planned for Locum coverage, but that is not always available. In order to balance the requirement we have invested heavily in upskilling of our Advance Care Practitioners and senior Practice Nurses, many of whom are independent prescribers, as well being particularly adept in many fields, and take a significant amount of routine work from the GPs; which has the additional benefits of freeing up the GPs’ time to look at the more complex cases.

This chart shows our clinical capacity from Apr – Aug 2023

Continual improvement

We were completely astonished at this week’s achievements with patient contacts. Having been evolving the Clinical Triage system since May 22, and having trialled a number of methods of operation, we find that we consulted with 1,913 patients this week – an all time 3 year record. This really boils down to adopting a new concept that tackles the demand on today’s modern Primary Care. The concept is that of looking at what assets and availability you have measured against the demand that you face. The reality is that this changes on a daily basis; and so opting to have a fixed plan for a fluid demand simply does not work.

We are under no illusions that we will be able to continue to surpass last year’s weekly consults, or that we can achieve more than 1,913 patients again – but we need to acknowledge that this didn’t happen by concept alone; a number of key members within our team went way over and above that which was reasonably expected of them – and we are so grateful that they did.

The team continues to pull together exceptionally well and the daily waiting list continues to prove successful; this week saw us being able to offer 77% of the patients being put on the daily waiting list to have a consultation.

• 446 patients called the Clinical Triage line
• 114 were asked if they wanted to be put on the daily waiting list.
• 102 patients from the waiting were called
• 42 patients were triaged through the Urgent on the Day facility

The Clinical Triage initiative continues to prove evidence that the Urgent-on-the-Day lists are reducing.

We are working on offering a percentage of our availability as online requests for Clinical Triage. This will be for patients who are registered for Vision Online Services. The availability will be from 07:45 and is to allow patients to request a booking prior to the 08:00 opening time.

Ordering prescriptions online

The online Prescription Request initiative remains to be popular and that is resulting in a lot of telephone calls that don’t have to happen – and that frees up the appointments line, and takes some of the patients away from the prescriptions line.

Of course the most efficient way of getting your prescriptions ordered is through Vision Patient Services because that feeds directly into our clinical system and allows the patient to see exactly what is on their current and repeat prescription lists. It’s really easy to use and applying for registration is just as easy. Check out the following links:

• Look at the videos showing exactly what the service is all about
• Apply to the Practice for registration details
• Then get your letter with the 3 important pieces of information for you to register
• Then register
• Once you have registered and have a username and password you can then login

If you are using our online form then we’ll probably contact you in order to get you moved across to the service.

Our statistics

Here are some of the main points for the week:

• This week saw us consult with 1,913 patients,15% of the Practice population, and that included 964, 50% of this week’s consultations as Face to Face contacts.
• Looking back over the past two years, in this week of each calendar year, and comparing like for like our patient contacts were:
  • 911 in 2021 (52% fewer than 2023)
  • 1,746 in 2022 (8% fewer than 2023)
  • And this week our forecast already shows that we have processed 41.54% of 2022’s achievements.
• We processed 49 MED3 Fitnotes through our web forms.
• We processed 45 Prescription requests through our web forms.
• Remember to contact us using the web form if you need to cancel your appointment because we can offer the appointment to other patients on the waiting list. Click here to find out how to cancel your appointment.
• We got 18 more patients on Vision Online Patient Services and so they will be able to order their prescriptions online – and this feeds directly into our clinical system. Check out our website for more information on Vision Online Services.
• We received 16 Subject Access Requests; ranging from patients wanting the results of their tests to full copies of medical records.
  • Find out more about Subject Access Requests on our website.
  • Find out about how to access your test results on our website.
• It was great to see many of our patients completing the Epilepsy Review form, which in turn allows us to keep an accurate record of the patient’s health.
• We’re still working on an online Home Blood Pressure Monitoring form to allow patients to submit daily or weekly average readings. More to follow.
• Once again we’d like to thank all patients for their patience and understanding last week.

Going into next week, our clinical capacity is at 95% with our GP capacity being 76%.

Clinical Capacity

The chart below show our overall clinical capacity, ie our doctors, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Practice Nurses, and Healthcare Assistants in relation to our GP availability. The fluctuation in general clinicians’ availability is illustrative of the percentage of our total capacity in relation to absences (planned as well as sickness); and the availability of GPs.

We are showing that we never have 100% of the GPs that we would like to have; and so when one goes off at short notice, for any reason, the week becomes challenging. We have planned for Locum coverage, but that is not always available. In order to balance the requirement we have invested heavily in upskilling of our Advance Care Practitioners and senior Practice Nurses, many of whom are independent prescribers, as well being particularly adept in many fields, and take a significant amount of routine work from the GPs; which has the additional benefits of freeing up the GPs’ time to look at the more complex cases.

This chart shows our clinical capacity from Apr – Aug 2023

Continual improvement

This week, once again, proved to be more successful than we first anticipated. It being the second of two four-day weeks we were unsure of how it would pan out. The Clinical Triage initiative is seeing real benefits as we surpassed 2021’s achievements by Wednesday afternoon. We were not able to match 2022’s patient consults but the like-for-like conditions were very different. In the same week last year we had 100% overall clinical capacity with an additional 2 GPs working – 12% more GP sessions over and above that which we would normally have working – and it was a five-day week. We are averaging 1,767 patient consults per week; that’s over 200 more than in 2022, and over 760, per week, more than in 2021.

The automation of O365 gives a much clearer situational awareness picture – and it’s in real time. That allows better informed decisions in a much quicker time frame. End result – we’re seeing more patients.

The team continues to pull together exceptionally well; and we consulted with a lot of patients. The daily waiting list continues to prove successful; this week saw us being able to offer 99% of the patients being put on the daily waiting list to have a consultation.

• 355 patients called the Clinical Triage line
• 94 were asked if they wanted to be put on the daily waiting list.
• 93 patients from the waiting were called
• 28 patients were triaged through the Urgent on the Day facility

The Clinical Triage initiative is also providing evidence that the Urgent-on-the-Day lists are reducing.

We are still considering offering a percentage of our availability as online requests for Clinical Triage. This will be for patients who are registered for Vision Online Services. The availability will be from 07:45 and is to allow patients to request a booking prior to the 08:00 opening time.

Ordering prescriptions online

The online Prescription Request initiative remains to be popular and that is resulting in a lot of telephone calls that don’t have to happen – and that frees up the appointments line, and takes some of the patients away from the prescriptions line.

Of course the most efficient way of getting your prescriptions ordered is through Vision Patient Services because that feeds directly into our clinical system and allows the patient to see exactly what is on their current and repeat prescription lists. It’s really easy to use and applying for registration is just as easy. Check out the following links:

• Look at the videos showing exactly what the service is all about
• Apply to the Practice for registration details
• Then get your letter with the 3 important pieces of information for you to register
• Then register
• Once you have registered and have a username and password you can then login

If you are using our online form then we’ll probably contact you in order to get you moved across to the service.

Our statistics

Here are some of the main points for the week:

• This week saw us consult with 1,593 patients,12.80% of the Practice population, and that included 745, 47% of this week’s consultations as Face to Face contacts.
• Looking back over the past two years, in this week of each calendar year, and comparing like for like our patient contacts were:
  • 1,081 in 2021 (32% fewer than 2023)
  • 1,741 in 2022 (9% more than 2023)
  • And this week our forecast already shows that we have processed 40.04% of 2022’s achievements.
• We processed 42 MED3 Fitnotes through our web forms.
• We processed 38 Prescription requests through our web forms.
• Remember to contact us using the web form if you need to cancel your appointment because we can offer the appointment to other patients on the waiting list. Click here to find out how to cancel your appointment.
• We got 18 more patients on Vision Online Patient Services and so they will be able to order their prescriptions online – and this feeds directly into our clinical system. Check out our website for more information on Vision Online Services.
• We received 16 Subject Access Requests; ranging from patients wanting the results of their tests to full copies of medical records.
  • Find out more about Subject Access Requests on our website.
  • Find out about how to access your test results on our website.
• It was great to see many of our patients completing the Epilepsy Review form, which in turn allows us to keep an accurate record of the patient’s health.
• We’re still working on an online Home Blood Pressure Monitoring form to allow patients to submit daily or weekly average readings. More to follow.
• Once again we’d like to thank all patients for their patience and understanding last week.

Going into next week, our clinical capacity is at 99% with our GP capacity being 72%.

Let’s have a cheeky wee look at the same week in 2022 – just for comparison. Remember last year it was a five-day week, and we had an overall full complement of clinicians and two more GPs (and we were taking incoming fire from social media snipers). We did well last year; and we’re doing much better this year. We think we did really well this week – and our new system surpasses anything that we were doing in the past. We do have a particularly great team now though.

Clinical Capacity

The chart below show our overall clinical capacity, ie our doctors, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Practice Nurses, and Healthcare Assistants in relation to our GP availability. The fluctuation in general clinicians’ availability is illustrative of the percentage of our total capacity in relation to absences (planned as well as sickness); and the availability of GPs.

We are showing that we never have 100% of the GPs that we would like to have; and so when one goes off at short notice, for any reason, the week becomes challenging. We have planned for Locum coverage, but that is not always available. In order to balance the requirement we have invested heavily in upskilling of our Advance Care Practitioners and senior Practice Nurses, many of whom are independent prescribers, as well being particularly adept in many fields, and take a significant amount of routine work from the GPs; which has the additional benefits of freeing up the GPs’ time to look at the more complex cases.

This chart shows our clinical capacity from Apr – Aug 2023

Continual improvement

Week 18 proved to be more successful than we first anticipated. It being the first of two four-day weeks we were unsure of how it would pan out. The Clinical Triage initiative is seeing real benefits as once again we surpassed the previous years’ patient consults. The team is pulling together exceptionally well; and we consulted with a lot of patients.

The inclusion of a daily waiting list continues to prove successful; this week saw us being able to offer 86% of the patients being put on the daily waiting list to have a consultation.

• 331 patients called the Clinical Triage line
• 56 were asked if they wanted to be put on the daily waiting list.
• 48 patients from the waiting were called
• 27 patients were triaged through the Urgent on the Day facility

The Clinical Triage initiative is also providing evidence that the Urgent-on-the-Day lists are reducing.

We are still considering offering a percentage of our availability as online requests for Clinical Triage. This will be for patients who are registered for Vision Online Services. The availability will be from 07:45 and is to allow patients to request a booking prior to the 08:00 opening time.

Ordering prescriptions online

The online Prescription Request initiative remains to be popular and that is resulting in a lot of telephone calls that don’t have to happen – and that frees up the appointments line, and takes some of the patients away from the prescriptions line.

Of course the most efficient way of getting your prescriptions ordered is through Vision Patient Services because that feeds directly into our clinical system and allows the patient to see exactly what is on their current and repeat prescription lists. It’s really easy to use and applying for registration is just as easy. Check out the following links:

• Look at the videos showing exactly what the service is all about
• Apply to the Practice for registration details
• Then get your letter with the 3 important pieces of information for you to register
• Then register
• Once you have registered and have a username and password you can then login

If you are using our online form then we’ll probably contact you in order to get you moved across to the service.

Our statistics

Here are some of the main points for the week:

• Week 18 saw us consult with 1,602 patients,12.87% of the Practice population, and that included 742, 46% of this week’s consultations as Face to Face contacts.
• Looking back over the past two years, in week 18 of each calendar year, and comparing like for like our patient contacts were:
  • 959 in 2021 (40% fewer than 2023)
  • 1,456 in 2022 (9% fewer than 2023)
  • And in Week 18 our forecast already shows that we have processed 37.12% of 2022’s achievements.
• We processed 44 MED3 Fitnotes through our web forms.
• We processed 47 Prescription requests through our web forms.
• Remember to contact us using the web form if you need to cancel your appointment because we can offer the appointment to other patients on the waiting list. Click here to find out how to cancel your appointment.
• We got 29 more patients on Vision Online Patient Services and so they will be able to order their prescriptions online – and this feeds directly into our clinical system. Check out our website for more information on Vision Online Services.
• We processed 10 Subject Access Requests; ranging from patients wanting the results of their tests to full copies of medical records.
  • Find out more about Subject Access Requests on our website.
  • Find out about how to access your test results on our website.
• It was great to see many of our patients completing the Epilepsy Review form, which in turn allows us to keep an accurate record of the patient’s health.
• We’re still working on an online Home Blood Pressure Monitoring form to allow patients to submit daily or weekly average readings. More to follow.
• Once again we’d like to thank all patients for their patience and understanding last week.

Going into Week 18, our clinical capacity is at 95% with our GP capacity being 73%.

Clinical Capacity

The chart below show our overall clinical capacity, ie our doctors, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Practice Nurses, and Healthcare Assistants in relation to our GP availability. The fluctuation in general clinicians’ availability is illustrative of the percentage of our total capacity in relation to absences (planned as well as sickness); and the availability of GPs.

We are showing that we never have 100% of the GPs that we would like to have; and so when one goes off at short notice, for any reason, the week becomes challenging. We have planned for Locum coverage, but that is not always available. In order to balance the requirement we have invested heavily in upskilling of our Advance Care Practitioners and senior Practice Nurses, many of whom are independent prescribers, as well being particularly adept in many fields, and take a significant amount of routine work from the GPs; which has the additional benefits of freeing up the GPs’ time to look at the more complex cases.

This chart shows our clinical capacity from Apr – Aug 2023

Continual improvement

Week 17 was another phenomenal week for us; and we were down the services of two Practice Nurses for a large part of the week. We continued with our approach of maximising the available clinical capacity which allowed us to keep the Clinical Triage window open for longer, and we have kept the waiting list concept going.

The inclusion of a daily waiting list continues to prove successful; this week saw us being able to offer 86% of the patients being put on the daily waiting list to have a consultation.

• 410 patients called the Clinical Triage line
• 87 were asked if they wanted to be put on the daily waiting list.
• 75 patients from the waiting were called
• 55 patients were triaged through the Urgent on the Day facility

To put some of this into perspective, on Friday 28 Apr our CT capacity remained open until 10:45; and we had 8 patients who called after this time. The last of the 8 patients called at 12:30 – all of whom were triaged, and there were no other calls until 14:00.

We’d like to offer more and are sorry that we were unable to offer any more capacity during this timeframe but patients can call after 14:00 if their needs are urgent, or can try again the next working day. The success of the waiting list continues to be down to the Duty Practice Nurse and ANP working together in order to get patients seen by the most appropriate clinician.

We are considering offering a percentage of our availability as online requests for Clinical Triage. This will be for patients who are registered for Vision Online Services. The availability will be from 07:45 and is to allow patients to request a booking prior to the 08:00 opening time.

Ordering prescriptions online

We started a new initiative with ordering online prescriptions – which proved to be very popular:

• Mon 24 Apr 23 – 19 requests
• Tue 25 Apr 23 – 11 requests
• Wed 26 Apr 23 – 12 requests
• Thu 27 Apr 23 – 9 requests
• Fri 28 Apr 23 – 7 requests
• Sat 29 Apr 23 – 3 requests
• Sun 30 Apr 23 – 3 requests

That’s a lot of telephone calls that didn’t have to happen – and that freed up the appointments line, and took some of the patients away from the prescriptions line.

Of course the most efficient way of getting your prescriptions ordered is through Vision Patient Services because that feeds directly into our clinical system and allows the patient to see exactly what is on their current and repeat prescription lists. It’s really easy to use and applying for registration is just as easy. Check out the following links:

• Look at the videos showing exactly what the service is all about
• Apply to the Practice for registration details
• Then get your letter with the 3 important pieces of information for you to register
• Then register
• Once you have registered and have a username and password you can then login

If you are using our online form then we’ll probably contact you in order to get you moved across to the service.

Our statistics

Here are some of the main points for the week:

• Week 17 saw us consult with 1,761 patients,14.41% of the Practice population, and that included 829, 47% of this week’s consultations as Face to Face contacts.
• Looking back over the past two years, in week 17 of each calendar year, and comparing like for like our patient contacts were:
  • 1,106 in 2021 (37% fewer than 2023)
  • 1,706 in 2022 (3% fewer than 2023)
  • And in Week 17 our forecast already shows that we have processed 37.51% of 2022’s achievements.
• We processed 44 MED3 Fitnotes through our web forms.
• We processed 87 patients for whom had been put on the daily waiting list.
• We processed 64 Prescription requests through our web forms.
• Remember to contact us using the web form if you need to cancel your appointment because we can offer the appointment to other patients on the waiting list. Click here to find out how to cancel your appointment.
• We got 21 more patients on Vision Online Patient Services and so they will be able to order their prescriptions online – and this feeds directly into our clinical system. Check out our website for more information on Vision Online Services.
• We processed 34 Subject Access Requests; ranging from patients wanting the results of their tests to full copies of medical records.
  • Find out more about Subject Access Requests on our website.
  • Find out about how to access your test results on our website.
• It was great to see many of our patients completing the Epilepsy Review form, which in turn allows us to keep an accurate record of the patient’s health.
• We’re still working on an online Home Blood Pressure Monitoring form to allow patients to submit daily or weekly average readings. More to follow.
• Once again we’d like to thank all patients for their patience and understanding last week.

Going into Week 18, our clinical capacity is at 82% with our GP capacity being 75%.

Clinical Capacity

The chart below show our overall clinical capacity, ie our doctors, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Practice Nurses, and Healthcare Assistants in relation to our GP availability. The fluctuation in general clinicians’ availability is illustrative of the percentage of our total capacity in relation to absences (planned as well as sickness); and the availability of GPs.

We are showing that we never have 100% of the GPs that we would like to have; and so when one goes off at short notice, for any reason, the week becomes challenging. We have planned for Locum coverage, but that is not always available. In order to balance the requirement we have invested heavily in upskilling of our Advance Care Practitioners and senior Practice Nurses, many of whom are independent prescribers, as well being particularly adept in many fields, and take a significant amount of routine work from the GPs; which has the additional benefits of freeing up the GPs’ time to look at the more complex cases.

This chart shows our clinical capacity from Apr – Aug 2023

We’d like to wish all of our English friends a happy St George’s day and hope that you continue to enjoy the continued friendship that exists between us.

We’d also like to wish our Muslim community Eid Mubarak and all of the very best wishes for Eid al-Fitr.

Our thoughts are with our friends and colleagues in Inverurie Medical Practice as we were saddened to hear that they have had to take the unenviable step of commencing the handing back of their contract to NHS Grampian. We know that this could not have been an easy decision for them, and being one of the largest medical practices in Grampian it will come as a shock to many. It is certainly a grounding point and one worth reflecting upon.

Continual improvement

Week 16 of this year saw the team working to a new level of optimum efficiency which allowed us to process the 4th highest amount of patients in 3 years; 1,836 patients, 855 of whom were seen as Face to Face appointments. That equates to 15% of the Practice population being consulted with, and 7% of the population being seen in the Practice. It took a bit of time for us to let that sink in; and is consistent with our ethos of having the right people at the right time, doing what they do best, unified in purpose, in order to produce better outcomes. Previous record highs were:

• 1,878 Week 36 in 2022
• 1,848 Week 05 in 2023
• 1,846 Week 08 in 2023

An important part of our evolvement and continual improvement is making sure that we accurately and consistently monitor our progress – always learning from where we have been less successful so-to-speak. Our thoughts are never far from the same time frame of 2022 where we, despite the negative social media wave, had already analysed our performance and put together an operational plan for moving forward – and this has paid dividends as our team recognise and pull together in order to face the shared challenges of today’s modern Primary Care demand. (See Follow our Journey)

The inclusion of a daily waiting list is proving to be successful; this week saw us being able to offer 64% of the patients being put on the daily waiting list to have a consultation. We’d like to offer more and are sorry that we were unable to offer any more capacity during this timeframe but patients can call after 14:00 if their needs are urgent, or can try again the next working day. The success of the waiting list is down to the Duty Practice Nurse and ANP working together in order to get patients seen by the most appropriate clinician.

We still do not have the capacity to offer the online Clinical Triage at this point; but we continue to monitor our capacity.

Ordering prescriptions online

We started a new initiative with ordering online prescriptions – which proved to be very popular:

• Mon 17 Apr 23 – 90 requests
• Tue 18 Apr 23 – 38 requests
• Wed 19 Apr 23 – 20 requests
• Thu 20 Apr 23 – 20 requests
• Fri 21 Apr 23 – 11 requests
• Sun 22 Apr 23 – 4 requests (at the time of writing)

That’s a lot of telephone calls that didn’t have to happen – and that freed up the appointments line, and took some of the patients away from the prescriptions line. We, and when I say we – what I actually mean is ‘Kirsty’ who processed over 100 requests in about an hour; and ordinarily that would have taken about a morning to process – it’s all connected.

Of course the most efficient way of getting your prescriptions ordered is through Vision Patient Services because that feeds directly into our clinical system and allows the patient to see exactly what is on their current and repeat prescription lists. It’s really easy to use and applying for registration is just as easy. Check out the following links:

• Look at the videos showing exactly what the service is all about
• Apply to the Practice for registration details
• Then get your letter with the 3 important pieces of information for you to register
• Then register
• Once you have registered and have a username and password you can then login

If you are using our online form then we’ll probably contact you in order to get you moved across to the service.

Our statistics

Here are some of the main points for the week:

• Week 16 saw us consult with 1,836 patients,14.75% of the Practice population, and that included 855, 47% of this week’s consultations as Face to Face contacts.
• Looking back over the past two years, in week 16 of each calendar year, and comparing like for like our patient contacts were:
  • 1,091 in 2021 (41% fewer than 2023)
  • 1,362 in 2022 (26% fewer than 2023)
  • And in Week 16 our forecast already shows that we have processed 35.23% of 2022’s achievements.
• We processed 83 MED3 Fitnotes through our web forms.
• We processed 39 patients for whom had been put on the daily waiting list.
• We processed 179 Prescription requests through our web forms.
• Facilitated 6 patient cancelled appointments. Thanks to all of whom took the time to contact using the web forms because we were able to offer appointment calls to some of the patients on the waiting list. Click here to find out how to cancel your appointment.
• We got seven more patients on Vision Online Patient Services and so they will be able to order their prescriptions online – and this feeds directly into our clinical system. Check out our website for more information on Vision Online Services.
• We processed 21 Subject Access Requests; ranging from patients wanting the results of their tests to full copies of medical records.
  • Find out more about Subject Access Requests on our website.
  • Find out about how to access your test results on our website.
• It was great to see many of our patients completing the Epilepsy Review form, which in turn allows us to keep an accurate record of the patient’s health.
• We’re still working on an online Home Blood Pressure Monitoring form to allow patients to submit daily or weekly average readings. More to follow.
• Once again we’d like to thank all patients for their patience and understanding last week.

It was also interesting to note that we had open capacity throughout the week where all patients calling were triaged.

Going into Week 17, our clinical capacity is at 92% with our GP capacity being at a healthy 82%.

Clinical Capacity

The chart below show our overall clinical capacity, ie our doctors, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Practice Nurses, and Healthcare Assistants in relation to our GP availability. The fluctuation in general clinicians’ availability is illustrative of the percentage of our total capacity in relation to absences (planned as well as sickness); and the availability of GPs.

We are showing that we never have 100% of the GPs that we would like to have; and so when one goes off at short notice, for any reason, the week becomes challenging. We have planned for Locum coverage, but that is not always available. In order to balance the requirement we have invested heavily in upskilling of our Advance Care Practitioners and senior Practice Nurses, many of whom are independent prescribers, as well being particularly adept in many fields, and take a significant amount of routine work from the GPs; which has the additional benefits of freeing up the GPs’ time to look at the more complex cases.

This chart shows our clinical capacity from Apr – Aug 2023

Week 15 Statistics

Week 15 of this year saw us with a four-day week due to the Public Holiday, Easter Monday, 10 April 23; and despite the phenominal effort from all of our team we were unable to match the equivelant week in 2022; the first time in 66 weeks that we have not surpassed the previous year’s figures. Of course the Easter week was in Week 16 of 2022; but in taking into account that our clinical capacity, both overall and our GPs, was at an all time low of 65%, we were only 110 patient consults fewer than 2022. Our avarage daily consults were 336 and so we believe that we have coped really well this week.

We trialled another initiative with the inclusion of a daily waiting list. Our concept of closing the Clinical Triage window when we have reached predicted capacity remained extant, but we have found that throughout the day there are occassions where capacity is freed up. This can be because some consults don’t take as long as predicted, or there are cancellations of appointments, or a mixture of both.

The continued use of the O365 technology allowed a more structured approach to taking patient requests in order to provide the clinicians with the best possible situational awareness for their decision making processes. This saving of time on each telephone call meant that patients were waiting for shorter times in the telephone queue and we were able to process more calls. Our Duty Practice Nurse and Advanced Nurse Practitioner played hugely important parts in the success of the week; and the daily totals of patient consults were, in the main, far better than the previous 4 weeks.

The waiting list is, however, on a trial basis and is only there in the case that some residual capacity becomes available. This week saw us having 46 people on the daily waiting list with 37 being subsequently called for Triage. Each patient that called after the Clinical Triage window was closed was given the criteria for the waiting list in order to establish that there was no guarantee of a call but we would do our very best. The waiting list also had the added benefit of reducing the amount of Urgent-on-the-Day calls from 14:00 and so our clinicians were in a better position to continue with the care-planning and consults for the remainder of each respective day.

We still do not have the capacity to offer the online Clinical Triage at this point; but we continue to monitor our capacity.

It was also interesting to note that we had open capacity on Friday 14 April where all patients calling were triaged and given a clinician consult.

Here are some of the main points for the week:

• Week 15 saw us consult with 1,346 patients,10.81% of the Practice population, and that included 648, 48% of this week’s consultations as Face to Face contacts.
• Looking back over the past two years, in week 15 of each calendar year, and comparing like for like our patient contacts were:
  • 963 in 2021 (28% fewer than 2023)
  • 1,456 in 2022 (8% more than 2023) which equates to 110 fewer patients in the week.
  • And in Week 15 our forecast already shows that we have processed 33.03% of 2022’s achievements.
• We processed 37 MED3 Fitnotes through our web forms.
• Facilitated 6 patient cancelled appointments. Thanks to all of whom took the time to contact using the web forms because we were able to offer appointment calls to some of the patients on the waiting list. Click here to find out how to cancel your appointment.
• We got four more patients on Vision Online Patient Services and so they will be able to order their prescriptions online – and this feeds directly into our clinical system. Check out our website for more information on Vision Online Services.
  • Please note that there are intermittent issues with getting registered on the Vision Online Services; and this is a fault with the 3rd party host. Please keep trying if you are trying to register.
• We processed 10 Subject Access Requests; ranging from patients wanting the results of their tests to full copies of medical records.
  • Find out more about Subject Access Requests on our website.
  • Find out about how to access your test results on our website.
• It was great to see many of our patients completing the Epilepsy Review form, which in turn allows us to keep an accurate record of the patient’s health.
• We’d like to offer our thanks to all of whom contributed to Dr Margaritescu’s appraisal questionnaire. This is an important part of the continued learning accounts for our GPs.
• We’re working on an online Home Blood Pressure Monitoring form to allow patients to submit daily or weekly average readings. More to follow.
• Once again we’d like to thank all patients for their patience and understanding last week.

Going into Week 16, our clinical capacity is back up to 92% with our GP capacity being at a healthy 82%.

Clinical Capacity

The chart below show our overall clinical capacity, ie our doctors, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Practice Nurses, and Healthcare Assistants in relation to our GP availability. The fluctuation in general clinicians’ availability is illustrative of the percentage of our total capacity in relation to absences (planned as well as sickness); and the availability of GPs.

We are showing that we never have 100% of the GPs that we would like to have; and so when one goes off at short notice, for any reason, the week becomes challenging. We have planned for Locum coverage, but that is not always available. In order to balance the requirement we have invested heavily in upskilling of our Advance Care Practitioners and senior Practice Nurses, many of whom are independent prescribers, as well being particularly adept in many fields, and take a significant amount of routine work from the GPs; which has the additional benefits of freeing up the GPs’ time to look at the more complex cases.

Week 14 Statistics

Historically, this week shows as a predictable drop in our patient capacity and this year was not different. We started the week with fewer clinicians and then had the unexpected news that our clinician capacity was further reduced through sickness of staff. It is testament to our wonderful clinical and administrative team that we still showed overall improvements, and in many other areas, than in both 2021 and 2022 respectively.

Our ability to dynamically change our operation in order to cope with patient-demand in relation to our clinical capacity paid dividends once again as the team seamlessly transitioned into Plan B. The advancements in the use of O365 have allowed better and more consistent information gathering; and has the benefit of spending less time on each call – meaning that we can process more patients.

Here are some of the main points for the week:

• Week 14 saw us consult with 1,537 patients,12.35% of the Practice population, and that included 778, 51% of this week’s consultations as Face to Face contacts.
• Looking back over the past two years, in week 14 of each calendar year, and comparing like for like our patient contacts were:
  • 779 in 2021 (49% fewer than 2023)
  • 1,335 in 2022 (13% fewer than 2023)
  • And in Week 13, the end of Quarter One, our forecast already shows that we have processed 31.45% of 2022’s achievements.
• We’d like to thank all patients for their patience and understanding last week.

Going into Week 15, a four-day week due to the Easter Public Holiday, we have less overall clinical capacity, but our GP capacity has risen. The GP trend rises exponentially until the end of April.

Clinical Capacity

The chart below show our overall clinical capacity, ie our doctors, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Practice Nurses, and Healthcare Assistants in relation to our GP availability. The fluctuation in general clinicians’ availability is illustrative of the percentage of our total capacity in relation to absences (planned as well as sickness); and the availability of GPs.

We are showing that we never have 100% of the GPs that we would like to have; and so when one goes off at short notice, for any reason, the week becomes challenging. We have planned for Locum coverage, but that is not always available. In order to balance the requirement we have invested heavily in upskilling of our Advance Care Practitioners and senior Practice Nurses, many of whom are independent prescribers, as well being particularly adept in many fields, and take a significant amount of routine work from the GPs; which has the additional benefits of freeing up the GPs’ time to look at the more complex cases.

Week 13 Statistics

This week saw us improve, once again, on last year’s weekly consults; and a marginal gain on the previous week. Our team continue to seek out innovative ways of managing patient demand; and part of our success this week was down to using advanced O365 functionality in getting real time data as the requests were coming in and applying this information to a more intelligent process of allocation to an appropriate clinician.

This meant that we were spending less time on the initial telephone calls to collate the patient requests, and average of 4 mins from start to finish, which meant that we were able to process more calls in less time. We took out some of the nugatory filing work that was involved in the previous system; and allowed far better situational awareness for multiple operators, including clinicians, which led to more effective triage.

Once again it is testament to the diligence of our team, and the understanding of our practice patient list that we processed the amount of patients that we did. We understand, however, that this doesn’t mean much to anyone who still could not get through to us and we can only apologise to anyone who we were unable to triage. We continue to monitor and analyse our operation and hope to continually improve as the weeks progress.

Here are some of the main points for the week:

• Week 13 saw us consult with 1,632 patients,13.11% of the Practice population, and that included 772, 47% of this week’s consultations as Face to Face contacts.
• Looking back over the past two years, in week 13 of each calendar year, and comparing like for like our patient contacts were:
  • 1,044 in 2021 (36% fewer than 2023)
  • 1,492 in 2022 (8% fewer than 2023)
  • And in Week 13, the end of Quarter One, our forecast already shows that we have processed 29.60% of 2022’s achievements.
• We’d like to thank all patients for their patience and understanding last week.

Clinical Capacity

The chart below show our overall clinical capacity, ie our doctors, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Practice Nurses, and Healthcare Assistants in relation to our GP availability. The fluctuation in general clinicians’ availability is illustrative of the percentage of our total capacity in relation to absences (planned as well as sickness); and the availability of GPs.

We are showing that we never have 100% of the GPs that we would like to have; and so when one goes off at short notice, for any reason, the week becomes challenging. We have planned for Locum coverage, but that is not always available. In order to balance the requirement we have invested heavily in upskilling of our Advance Care Practitioners and senior Practice Nurses, many of whom are independent prescribers, as well being particularly adept in many fields, and take a significant amount of routine work from the GPs; which has the additional benefits of freeing up the GPs’ time to look at the more complex cases.

Week 12 Statistics

This week started off well with us having achieved over 25% of last year’s totals by close of play Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday were on par with the previous two weeks; but early on Thursday morning we were saddened to learn that one of our GPs had taken ill and was not able to come to work. This was devastating for the GP because this is the last thing that any GP wants to have to advise; and there was an inevitable knock on effect with our patients’ appointments as we had to enact our contingency plan very quickly.

The team pulled together fantastically; and with the minimum of fuss there was a seamless transition to Plan B where appointments were moved, patients notified, the Practice population were notified by SMS, the website and Facebook were used to notify everyone; and a huge vote of thanks to the team at Deveron FM for helping us to get our message out to the general public.

It is testament to the diligence of our team, and the understanding of our practice patient list that we transitioned smoothly; but we can only apologise to anyone who was disadvantaged by the situation. We continue to monitor and analyse our operation and hope to continually improve as the weeks progress.

Here are some of the main points for the week:

• Week 12 saw us consult with 1,558 patients,12.51% of the Practice population, and that included 781 Face to Face contacts.
• Looking back over the past two years, in week 12 of each calendar year, and comparing like for like our patient contacts were:
  • 1,132 in 2021 (27% fewer than 2023)
  • 1,456 in 2022 (7% fewer than 2023)
  • And in Week 12 our forecast already shows that we have processed 27.35% of 2022s totals – and we still have one week to go in Quarter 1.
• We’d like to thank all patients for their patience and understanding last week.

Clinical Capacity

We thought that our patients may be interested in our clinical capacity. The chart below show our overall clinical capacity, ie our doctors, Advanced Clinical Practitioners, Practice Nurses, and Healthcare Assistants in relation to our GP availability. The fluctuation in general clinicians’ availability is illustrative of the percentage of our total capacity in relation to absences (planned as well as sickness); and the availability of GPs.

We are showing that we never have 100% of the GPs that we would like to have; and so when one goes off at short notice, for any reason, the week becomes challenging. We have planned for Locum coverage, but that is not always available. In order to balance the requirement we have invested heavily in upskilling of our Advance Care Practitioners and senior Practice Nurses, many of whom are independent prescribers, as well being particularly adept in many fields, and take a significant amount of routine work from the GPs; which has the additional benefits of freeing up the GPs’ time to look at the more complex cases.

Week 11 Statistics

General Comments

• Week 11 saw us consult with 1,715 patients,13.78% of the Practice population, and that included 826 Face to Face contacts.
• We are still dealing with staff absences through this week and we remain hopeful that our staff get better soon.
• Looking back over the past two years, in week 11 of each calendar year, and comparing like for like our patient contacts were:
  • 1,096 (same as the previous week) in 2021 (36% fewer than 2023)
  • 1,304 in 2022 (16% fewer than 2023)
  • And in Week 11 our forecast already shows that we have processed 25.3% of 2022s totals – and we still have two weeks to go in Quarter 1.
• We’d like to thank all patients for their patience and understanding last week.

Other news

The UK Government published the policy on guidance on NHS patients who wish to pay for additional care. We have updated our website in order to provide the right information for patients to consider when they are opting for private (i.e. non-NHS healthcare providers). This includes NHS guidance of how NHS care is affected if a patient wishes to pay for private treatment; and an easy to follow flowchart providing a summary of the considerations and pathways for the private sector transferring the care to NHS.

Social Media platforms

In Jun 2022 we issued a public statement which, amongst other things, highlighted our use of social media – Facebook in particular. We believe in the importance of using social media in a positive way in order to channel our messages. We believe in the professional and moral obligation to ensure our social media pages are not there to be used as a platform for the creation of an intimidating, threatening, or hostile environment which causes offence and stress for others.

When we put an article, link, or a message on our social media platform we do so in good faith, and confident in the knowledge that it has been fact checked for accuracy and honesty. Our articles are there as a means to inform. Many of our followers will realise that we do not allow comments on our articles – we learned that even the slightest comment from one response can trigger many more; and it doesn’t matter whether the response causes hurt, offence, stress to our Practice in general – or whether the target of the response becomes personal: indeed it doesn’t even matter if the genesis of the response was even true, the disproportionate negative affect can be, and often is, quite devastating.

Our approach, therefore, remains to be the same. We will not allow profanity, bullying, or intimidation on any of our media platforms; and we will not be associated with any platform or follower that does.

Week 10 Statistics

General Comments

• Week 10 saw us consult with 1,578 patients,12.62% of the Practice population, and that included 793 Face to Face contacts.
• We had a another challenging week; and consulting with fewer clinicians presents daily challenges that we make every effort to overcome. Our issues with staff absences continued through this week and we are hopeful that our staff get better soon.
• We had to notify the Health Board that we were moving to Level 2, reduced services, for Thursday, a step that we don’t take lightly. Again we tried to get the message out as quickly as possible by using our website, Facebook page, and the use of SMS text messages.
• Looking back over the past two years, in week 10 of each calendar year, and comparing like for like our patient contacts were:
  • 1,096 in 2021 (31% fewer than 2023)
  • 1,385 in 2022 (12% fewer than 2023)
• We’d like to thank all patients for their patience and understanding last week.

Week 9 Statistics

General Comments

• Week 9 saw us consult with 1,559 patients,12.47% of the Practice population, and that included 774 Face to Face contacts.
• We had a particularly challenging week; and consulting with fewer clinicians presents daily challenges that we make every effort to overcome. We were down three Advanced Care Practitioners, and averaged being down two GPs this week. Our whole team stood up to the challenges of this week; and it would be remiss not to mention the appointment of the Duty Practice Nurse; both of whom play such a strategic part in the Triage process; and without whom we could not have seen the amount of patients that we have this year.
• We had to notify the Health Board that we were moving to Level 3, reduced services, for Thursday and Friday. We didn’t take that step lightly and this was the first time we have ever had to do this – even throughout the Covid pandemic. We tried to get the message out as quickly as possible by using our website, Facebook page, Deveron FM, and the use of SMS text messages.
• Interestingly when we look back over the past two years, in week 9 of each calendar year, and comparing like for like our patient contacts were:
  • 1,085 in 2021 (30% fewer than 2023)
  • 1,384 in 2022 (11% fewer than 2023)
• And that provides us with a confidence that our Clinical Triage system, although not perfect, allows us to process more clinical requests on a daily basis than ever before. A point that we made clear to a meeting with Aberdeenshire Health and Social Partnership on Friday 03 March.
• We’d like to thank all patients for their patience and understanding last week.

Comparative charts

We are now showing the comparative weekly statistics based upon the latest complete week with the previous.

Our telephone lines

Our telephone lines are open from 08:00 – 18:00 each day; and we have 5 lines open. We understand the frustration with the difficulties of getting through at 08:00; and all medical practices in the UK will face the same issues when calling at 08:00. Please consider:

• Not all ailments require a GP – many can be seen by our nursing team; two of whom are prescribers, and so you don’t have to phone at 08:00 because there are usually appointments available.
• You can see a Nurse about: blood pressure checks, back pain, coughs and colds, rashes, sore throat, urine infection, cervical smears, dressings, family planning advice, contraceptives, minor injuries and ailments, immunisations, diabetes management, asthma care, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) care, smoking cessation, free health checks for 40-70 year olds, removal of stitches and clips, etc.
• Try not to phone about prescriptions at 08:00 – we have a facility for online requests for prescriptions
• Our Repeat Prescription line is for Repeat Prescriptions only – not to request something that you feel that you would like or need. There are hundreds of messages left on the Prescription line – and any message left requesting anything that is not on a Repeat Prescription will be deleted.

Week 7 and 8 Statistics

General Comments

• Week 8 saw us consult with 15% of the Practice population
• Week 7 saw us consult with 14% of the Practice population

Week 19 Statistics

General Comments

• We’re going into this week with 5.13% of the patient list pre-booked.
• 172 Face-to-Face appointments are already in place.

Week 19 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

Week 18 Statistics

General Comments

• We started the week with 4.38% of the patient list pre-booked and;
• 171 Face-to-Face appointments were already in place.
• We were short on clinicians due to planned absence and sickness
• We were short of Clinical Administrators due to planned absence
• We processed 1,559 patients, 348 of whom were Face-to-Face consultations
• That equates to 12.47% of our c.12,500 patient list
• We worked beyond our capacity every day because your Practice Team gave more of their time
• We hope that the patient who came into the Practice, two hours early, and then proceeded to besmirch the name of the Practice and its staff for those two hours – in the hope that they would jump the queue that everyone else was waiting in – can take a moment of their time to reflect and look at what we were doing this week

Week 18 Statistics

Website Visits

• We monitor the website traffic very carefully in order to make better informed decisions
• This was a busy week for website visits

Annual Comparator 2021 / 2022

• We’re still seeing more patients per week than ever before in previous years

Annual Consultations and Face to Face Appointments 2021 / 2022

And it’s about time we introduced our Pharmacy department

• The volume of medication items contained within the individual prescriptions processed on a daily basis is simply staggering
• Each one of these prescriptions need clinical and administrative input, on many levels, every day
• Our clinicians and pharmacy department make this look easy – but it isn’t!
• So if you’re ever wondering why your prescription wasn’t ready within hours of a request – it’s because your request is one of many hundreds in the day – and many thousands in the month

Week 18 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

Week 17 Statistics

General Comments

• We started this week with 4.06% of the patient list pre-booked.
• 138 Face-to-Face appointments were already in place. Much of this is down to the effectiveness of the Clinical Triage approach. The consultation starts with submitting the Clinical Triage form, be it online or over the phone, because the clinician is getting more informed situational awareness before the first telephone contact. Thereafter a care plan can be formulated – and this is shown by the pre-booked patients.

Week 17 Statistics

• We saw fewer patients this week than in previous weeks; but our clinical capacity was operating at maximum, and most clinicians worked over and above what they would ordinarily have been expected to see.
• 304 patients were processed through Clinical Triage, resulting in;
• 308 Face to Face appointments and;
• 65 patients were seen as Urgent on the Day.
• That’s still 11.86% of the practice’s c. 12,500 patient list

2022 consultations

• We’re still managing to process more patients in the week than in the same time in 2021. We’re not deliberately trying to exceed last year’s figures; but it is an indication that although Clinical Triage is not the answer to all issues, it is allowing us to consult with more patients; and we don’t have long waiting lists.

Week 16 and 17 Website visits – by hour

Sep and Oct 22 Site visit comparisons

Week 17 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

Week 16 Statistics

General Comments

• We entered this week with 4.71% of the patient list pre-booked.
• 231 Face-to-Face appointments were already in place.
• We were short staffed due to illness and planned holidays but 1,714 patients were consulted with and;
• 389 patients were seen as Face to Face.
• 454 patients didn’t have to wait in a telephone queue to get a clinical consultation.
• We did have to close down the Clinical Triage online request form earlier than planned each day; and although this is regrettable, it is an operational necessity, and is based upon the changing dynamics of the days’ requirements.
• In the same week in 2021 we had processed the most patients, per week, in the year to date; and this year we surpassed that 😊

Week 16 Statistical breakdown

Other Statistics

• The question of ‘what are your doctors actually doing – are they sitting doing nothing?’ was posed by two patients, on different occasions this week. The question was answered at the time; but we thought that if two patients were prepared to ask the question, there may be others thinking the same thing. We promised to apprise our patients of what we were doing to serve the community, and so:

Our Annual Comparator

• We’re continuing to outperform our 2021 consultations

Our website visits (by the hour)

• We are constantly looking at our website statistics in order that we make better informed and evidence based decisions.
• The chart below shows the comparative visits to our website for the previous two weeks.

Our running totals for 2022

And not forgetting our awesome Clinical Administrative Team

Our awesome Clinical Administrative team, without which we could not operate, continued to excel this week. Notwithstanding that we were short-staffed due to illness and planned holidays; and apart from facilitating ALL OF THE ABOVE, they processed a phenomenal amount of medical documents – documents that form a critical and integral part of each patient’s medical journal. We often wonder just how they manage to switch between the multitude of tasks in the day, including the less palatable aspects of the job; but we have come to the inescapable conclusion that they are simply awesome – and we are all lucky to have them.

Week 16 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

Week 15 Statistics

General Comments

• We went into this week with 5.29% of the patient list pre-booked.
• 244 Face-to-Face appointments were already in place.
• 366 patients didn’t have to telephone to have a clinical consultation and;
• 484 patients were seen as Face-to-Face consultations
• We had to take steps to monitor the flow of Clinical Triage requests – and in order for us to manage the demand in relation to our available clinicians we had to take the decision to close down the Clinical Triage online form earlier than our planned time of 10:30 each day; but………………….
• We still processed 1,842 consultations, the breakdown of which is shown below:

Week 15 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

2021 / 2022 Comparator

We’re still consistently achieving more patient consults week on week

2022 Weekly totals and Face-to-Face consultations

2022 Running totals

Week 15 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

Week 14 Statistics

General Comments

• We were closed Mon 26 September for a pre-planned Public Holiday.
• 393 patients didn’t have to make a phone call to arrange a consultation with a clinician.
• We had to close down the Clinical Triage Window for two of the days this week. This was to ensure that we were able to manage the patient demand in relation to our available clinicians. This will happen from time-to time; and is no different to any other medical practice when the availability has reached full capacity.

Week 14 Statistical appointments

Practice Running Totals 2022

2021 / 2022 Weekly Comparator

• Recently we were posed some interesting MSP questions that warranted further analysis of what we are trying to achieve in relation to providing a good service within our available operational capacity.
• The chart above shows how many patient consultations, per week, we delivered in relation to 2021/2022.
• Our analysis shows that, with the exception of week 2, we have consistently achieved more per week this year. Amongst other things, one of the comments posed to us was that we seemed to be pushing patients away and are not seeing patients.
• We have documented throughout our journey that leading up to week 14, first week of Apr 2022, there was a social media outcry that we were not seeing patients; which in turn prompted the local press, MPs, and local Council to call into question our operation. The reality was that up until that point we delivered an average increase of 30.35% more patient consultations than the previous year.
• 2021 was Year Two of Covid, and the Practice was determined to get back to being as normal as we could reasonably be expected to be.
• Remember that we never locked our doors throughout the Pandemic hitherto. But Week 14 was a pivotal turning point for the Practice – sudden some might say! And in that week, despite having been let down by Locum agencies – and being short staffed, we delivered 71.37% more patient consultations than in the same week in 2021.
• Clinical Triage started in Week 27; and since that time we have delivered an average of 71.23% more patient consultations this year than we did in 2021.
• Two weeks prior to the commencement of Clinical Triage, 10 Jun 22, we had been asked the question ‘will the new system be better?’. Our response was that we didn’t really know – because it was a new initiative; but we had expected it to because it was based upon sound analysis and best-practise. We predicted:
  • That the system was in our hands and if it was not working we could change – and we have.
  • We could adapt to the requirements of dynamic change – and we did.
  • That we would carefully monitor the system in order to not overstretch our resources – and we are.
  • That we would take all steps to apprise our patients of any changes to our situation – and we do.
  • We would evaluate, adapt, and improve as we move forward – and we are.
• Primary Care has never been in such a fragile state, especially in this region, as it currently is. Every facet of Primary and Secondary care is currently under increasing pressure to meet the ever-growing demand; a point that we have made very clear to MPs, MSPs, and Counsillors in the hope that they may exert any influence they may have at their disposal to help us.
• We have 3 outstanding GP Partners who have continued to accept these challenges, and drive forward change in order to meet the demand. They are supported by an equally outstanding clinical and administrative team – all of whom are dedicated, often in the face of adversity, to making this Practice a success. On a daily basis our team make the impossible possible, and do the right thing – on difficult days – when no-one is looking – and remain very humble. As a community we are fortunate to have such a dedicated team.

Week 14 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

We started the four-day week with 4.14% of the Practice population pre-booked, with 160 Face-to-Face appointments.

Week 13 Statistics

General Comments

Our Clinical and Administrative team were simply phenomenal this week. Despite the dynamic challenges of each day – they simply got on with the job in hand; no fuss, no stress, just sheer dogged determination to provide outstanding service. We’re so proud of this ever-developing team – awesome!

• In order to minimise any disruption to our pre-booked patients, we made a conscious decision to remain open on Monday 19 September 2022.
• It was very unfortunate that we experienced failures in our clinical IT system Mon – Thu. These issues were also felt by many other Practices in Grampian; and we are assured that everything is being done to fix the issue.
• Notwithstanding that we remained open on Monday 19 Sep, our numbers that day were down – but we felt an exponential surge for the remainder of the week. We reached saturation point on Tue, Wed, and Thu and had to turn off the facility on the website in order that we could deal with the patients that we had already began to process. This is not a step that we take lightly but we must have contingency in order to deal with these surges.
• The team were phenomenal this week; the clinicians had a difficult task – and our Clinical Administration team, who were short staffed, got on with the jobs in hand with professionalism and good grace. No sign of stress, panic, or indeed any worry about the dynamic challenges of the day – no matter how sudden!
• It was pleasing to hear that the vast majority of our patients who were affected by this were understanding. We had more capacity on the Friday – but it was a very difficult week.
• We completed over 30 Subject Access Requests; many of which were completed there and then, or within a short time afterwards.
• We’re signing more and more patients to the Vision Online Services for the ordering of Repeat Prescriptions. The great thing with this system is that it links directly into our clinical system and is a much more efficient way of ordering; and our team are then freed up to carry out the other administrative roles.
• Another sad occasion was to say farewell to Hilary Murray who had been with the Practice for over 18 years. We all thank Hilary for her sterling service to the Practice and wish her well in her new ventures.
• We welcomed Chloe Cowie to the team and look forward to working with her in the coming months.

Weekly Statistics

• Tuesday was a particularly busy day
• We still saw over 13% of the Practice population and;
• 361 patients were seen Face to Face, 103 of whom were seen by a GP.
• 490 patients didn’t have to make a telephone call to have a consultation with a clinician.

Our GP Statistics this week

Our Nurse Statistics this week

22 – 24 Sep 22

21 Sep 22

Due to unprecedented numbers requesting Clinical Triage we had to close down the Urgent On The Day. Here are the statistics for 20 & 21 Sep 22

Week 13 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

Week 12 Statistics

General Comments

• Each morning we experienced significant IT issues that were outwith our control
• The team worked tirelessly to regain the impetus required to maintain operational effectiveness
• 553 patients didn’t have to wait in a telephone queue to have a consultation with a clinician
• We took the decision to remain open 19 Sep 2022 – we had already pre-booked 150 patients for consultations. This would have affected the remainder of the week’s consultations.
• We also took into consideration that we are closed on a pre-planned Public Holiday next week – 26 Sep 2022

Week 12 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

Week 11 Statistics

General Comments

• We had a catastrophic failure of our Clinical System this week and had to close down UOTD
• We processed a record number of patients this week
• 632 patients didn’t need to wait in a telephone queue to have a consultation with a clinician
• Our Team are quite amazing……

Week 11 Statistics

2022 Running Totals – We believe that this is what ‘good’ looks like

Week 11 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

Week 10 Statistics

General Comments

This week 521 Patients didn’t need to make a telephone call to get a telephone consultation with one of our clinicians – that’s got to be worth something……

Week 10 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

Week 9 Statistics – 2nd highest number of patients processed since Week 1 of Clinical Triage

General Comments

…..490 Patients didn’t need to make a telephone call to secure a consultation with a clinician – 490 fewer phone calls meant that we were able to concentrate our collective efforts on other key areas…..

Week 9 Statistics

Satisfaction Survey statistics showing a slight improvement overall

Week 9 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

Week 8 Statistics

General Comments

487 Patients didn’t have to make a telephone call in order to have a consultation with a Clinician

Week 8 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

General Comments

Week 7 Statistics

Having entered the week with 4% of the Practice list pre-booked in accordance with the requirements of our clinicians; we processed 14% of our Practice list, 518 of them being channelled through Clinical triage:

518 patients not having to make a telephone call in order for them to be contacted by a clinician

Satisfaction Survey

Overall Satisfaction Survey

Informed Decision Making

Week 7 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

General Comments

• Limited GP Partner availability
• Limited Management Team availability
• Limited Administrative cover availability
• Well done Team Macduff – you’re on point!
• Well done Lynda Wiseman and the Administrative team – you were on fire!
• ….Trio….

Week 6 – 1710 Patients processed – that’s 14% of the Practice Population

What times are you visiting our site?

Week 6 Statistical Pre-booked appointments

General Comments

• Limited Clinical Administrative Staff
• No issues with Clinical Staff
• Weather conditions good

Week 5 Statistical Data

Satisfaction Survey

Statistical data gathered 27 Jun until present date

Mon 25 Jul 22

Way to go Team Macduff – nothing short of phenomenal!

And we’re being watched from afar

• Pre-booked statistics going into the week

General Comments

• 19 Jul 22 Clinical Triage web page schedule had to be manually adjusted to make it run. Started from 07:35
• No discernible difference in a Tuesday’s stats for Clinical Triage (with the exception of Tue 13 Jul 22 – returning from a Public Holiday)
• Sub-optimal
• Website developers engaged
• Updates made to the website.

General Comments

• Clinical Triage web page schedule had to be manually adjusted to make it run. Started from 07:35
• Sub-optimal
• Website developers engaged
• Solution found
• Apology issued on FB
• We learn, we move on.

General Comments

• 4 Day week due to Bank Holiday
• 410 Clinical Triage patients processed – 11 fewer than the previous five-day week.
• Weather conditions – very good.
• Staff morale: Very High

General Comments

• 5 Day week
• 421 Clinical Triage patients processed.
• Weather conditions – good.
• Staff morale: Very High

General Comments

• 5 Day week
• 457 Clinical Triage patients processed
• Staff morale: Very High

General Comments

• 5 Day week Week
• Staff morale: Low

General Comments

• 5 Day week Week
• Staff morale: Low
• 17 Jun 22 issued a Public Statement to Counsellor Glen Reynolds formally publishing our Operational Analysis and Statement of Intent

General Comments

• 5 Day week Week
• Staff morale: Low
• 7 Jun 22 Public statement explaining the findings of our Operational Analysis and what we were doing about it
• 10 Jun 22 presented our Practice to Councillor Glen Reynolds (Presentation)

General Comments

• 5 Day Week
• One of the lowest points in staff morale – ever but;
• There was a sudden sense of elation and positivity that surged through the Practice – quite uncanny really!
• Even with being let down by Locums, and being Short staffed due to staff sickness, we processed 11% of the Practice Population
• There were complaints, and many of the social media comments cut to the core; and in turn left many of our staff; all of whom were making the impossible possible every day – at their lowest ebb. Some of the screen shot comments were aimed at those of whom cannot defend themselves in the public domain.
• We had already began planning for the future – and were preparing for the inevitable backlash.
• Our staff performed brilliantly – and were disproportionately maligned by a minority.
• Our staff took a power of verbal abuse on the phone, and in the surgery that week and there were a number of Zero Tolerance letters issued.
• If any group of people could have succumbed to going sick it was our staff – and they didn’t – and 1,343 patients benefited from their resolve; because in spite of those of whom let us down – they put their heads above the parapet and performed like the true heroes they are. Proud doesn’t even come close to giving them the praise that they deserve.
• We learned a lot that week – and we came out of it stronger than ever before.