The dog and bone that didn’t bark
This time yesterday I was in Plaistow, East London and while Cockney rhyming slang is spoken in these parts, you are as likely to hear any of a dozen East European or South Asian languages on the street. It’s quite deprived and extraodinarily diverse.
I was visiting Balaam St Surgery. As anyone knows in general practice, it is pandemonium first thing in the morning when the phones go over. So here’s what Nihul on reception told me:
“We only had three phone calls between 8 and 9 this morning”
That dog and bone just lay there.
Practice manager Divya came out to ask what was not going on. This is week 7 and the numbers have subsided as they keep giving out the same message:
“Do you have an email address?” – yes
“Do you have a smartphone or internet?” – yes
“Can I tell you about a shortcut to get help from the GP?” – yes
Then they show them the practice website, click askmyGP and take it from there. 80% of demand is now online.
Barry Sullman the GP was working from home that day for family reasons, had all 25 askmyGPs directed to him via VPN and messaged or called them from the home office, bringing some in to see the GP on site.
He tells me Monday – Tuesday are hard work, Weds was fine, he looks forward to Thursday – Friday. This has never happened before. He’s saving money, doesn’t need locums any more, takes the kids to school.
While Pulse moans on about GPs turning patients away, Barry is recruiting patients. He keeps telling me “It’s digital triage. There isn’t the strain of telephone triage. This is the future of the NHS.”
The thing I find difficult is that when I report what they are telling me in their own words, people say it’s too good to be true therefore it isn’t true.
That’s really sad, because while GPs are sitting there moaning and disbelieving, their most profitable patients are turning to GP at Hand to get a service far worse than what Barry and his team are providing from their own local surgery.
Spend 5 minutes in reception when it opens tomorrow morning and see what you could say goodbye to.
- Published in Success Stories
Enjoy the summer?
Looking out on the rain, memories quickly fade of, for once, that glorious bank holiday weekend.
In GP land you may have noticed a lighter week too, because demand is predictably sensitive to weather – whether warm sunshine or heavy snow.
We need to qualify the effect however, because if your system is book ahead and wait, lower demand only shows up as a smaller backlog and maybe less pressure on reception. You will still see the same number of patients who have patiently waited whatever the urgency of their need, and it will feel like a treadmill.
The point of a demand-flow system is that there’s always plenty of capacity for the predicted demand, and if it comes in below prediction, you can enjoy the sunshine. A colleague of mine visited one practice we work with on Thursday lunchtime and there were just no patients, time for chat.
Now with summer on the way it is of course the perfect time to put that demand-flow system in place but let me tell you about a real problem we are struggling with.
I can name three practices right now where they are very clear on the challenges they face, they can’t cope with the workload, they know the service is terrible, and their receptionists are getting abuse every single day.
They’ve done a thorough analysis, all the surveys, know exactly what to do, and four GP partners can hardly wait to get going. But one, or perhaps two, partners have dug their heels in.
I’m a great fan of the partner model for a host of reasons, and I haven’t seen a better one, but it has its drawbacks. One partner can veto any change. They are condemning the others to live with the same or worsening situation. Why isn’t there a veto on doing nothing?
Fundamentally I think this imbalance in favour of inaction is holding GPs back, perhaps the whole profession, even if a majority can see what needs to be done.
Are you in this situation or do you have any suggestions?
Meanwhile two north east practices launch on Monday and let’s hope they enjoy the summer.
Kind regards
Harry Longman
PS: One who did act was Dr Sue Arnott and she joins us for this Thursday’s webinar at 1pm.
Online consultations – what is working and why?
Some background on how she came to be running a 4,700 practice as a single hander here.
Many have asked for the first in the series recorded, so it’s here, 45 minutes, “Exploding the myths of online consultations”
- Published in News
