News
Total Triage GP model - 10th Feb 2025
Dear Pinfold Medical Practice patients,
We wish to share some very exciting news about a significant change to our appointment system that will improve the way our surgery delivers care to all our patients.
GP practices across UK are moving to a ‘Modern General Practice’ model to make access to care and treatment easier for patients and help improve patient satisfaction. This is a national NHS project, and all general practices must adopt the system eventually.
From the 10th of Feb 2025 we are going to trial Total Triage model before we adopt it with any adaptations to suit our own patient needs.
Please note this does not affect any nurse, pharmacist, or other supporting service appointment onsite. They all can be accessed as usual.
What is Total Triage?
Total triage is a General Practice workflow where every patient contacting a practice first provides some information on the reasons for contact and is triaged before making an appointment.
All patient requests will be triaged by one of our experienced GPs who will decide what the best course of action is. Where necessary, we might ask you to answer a few additional questions to help our doctor prioritise those patients who need more urgent care.
You could be given a face to face or telephone appointment; you could have a reply from the GP with self-care advice or you could be signposted to a more appropriate service.
We will have following types of appointments:
- Same day GP triage
- Same day face to face or telephone – for emergencies
- Within 7 days – for follow up with a healthcare professional if not urgent (You will receive a self-book link to book your appointment) if a GP feels it necessary
- More than 7 days – for routine planned appointments (You will receive a self-book link to book your appointment). Annual review or planned follow up requested by GP.
- Booking links for Nurse appointments – if a patient requires urgent bloods due to the presenting condition, GP/Clinicians we will see you the same day. However, if they require routine or non-urgent bloods, GPs/staff will send you a nurse booking link for you to manage alongside your diary and our availability.
- Care coordinator slots – for complex cases and pts requiring urgent support and are on GSF, safeguarding, Cancer and EOL register.
Please note Nurse appointments are not affected and remains the same as before if you need it for cervical screening, wound management, bloods etc.
The main purpose of the Total Triage model is to:
- enhance the quality of care our patients receive.
- ensure they are given the most appropriate appointment or advice to meet their needs.
- communicate with patients in a timely way.
- Move away from first come first served approach to one based on patient needs.
How does it work?
All patients who ring the practice, complete e-consult or walk in to the practice will be assessed by reception team to do our best to get you to the right service in the first instance, with clinical triage being an option.
Ideally, practice could work better with patients submitting requests via e-consults, however we appreciate that this may not be possible for some patients. If you are unable to use or access the practice online form then please contact the surgery in the usual way and we will complete the request for you and add you to the triage list, if necessary, to be reviewed by the GP.
After which the GP will review your request and you will either receive a call to be offered a same day appointment, receive a self-book link or you might receive a message with advice from the GP.
Please note that in order for the GP to triage your request in a timely manner it is very important to provide detailed and accurate information about your symptoms when you contact us in the first place. For example, if a patient has a cough, it would be much easier to triage the request with the following information: ‘I had a cough for 10 days. I have already used over the counter medicine, but it is not helping and in the last couple of days my cough has been worsening and it feels chestier. I also have a high temperature.’
If the information given is less detailed, such as ‘I had a cough for 10 days’, it makes it harder for the reception staff/GP to triage and we will need to request further information which could delay treatment.
The Total Triage service will be open Monday to Friday. During the weekend or bank holidays please continue to use the 111 service or call 999 for life threatening emergencies. Please note, there me be times when we may temporarily suspend the online triage form to help manage the demand. In these circumstances you will see the following:
- a message to advise that the Patient Triage is temporarily unavailable and information on when the link will be active again and how to contact the practice another way.
- a message prompting patient to use NHS 111 online, to find a local pharmacy or attend the Urgent Treatment Centre
How does this benefit you?
We know that change can be difficult sometimes, but we are confident that Total Triage will bring many benefits to our patients – for example:
- Total Triage has been shown to reduce waiting times and it enables us to attend to your medical needs more promptly.
- Using digital communication will mean that you can engage with us from the comfort of your home or workplace.
- Triage ensures that limited healthcare resources are allocated to patients who need them most urgently.
- Total Triage will address the increasing demand for appointments and reduce the frustration of having to call and be in a long queue at 8am.
If you have any questions or concerns our team is here to guide and support, you.
Thank you for supporting us with this new project.
Sincerely,
Pinfold Medical Practice team
Flu and COVID-19 booster program
We are starting to put in place arrangements for the COVID-19 and flu campaigns for this coming Autumn.
Vaccinations will start on 1st of October 2024 as per the guidance provided by NHS England.
The practice will contact eligible cohort as and when deliveries of the vaccines are recieved.
The following groups are to be offered flu and COVID booster vaccination in line with the announced and authorised cohorts :
From 1 September 2024:
- pregnant women
- all children aged 2 or 3 years on 31 August 2024
- primary school aged children (from Reception to Year 6)
- secondary school aged children (from Year 7 to Year 11)
- all children in clinical risk groups aged from 6 months to less than 18 years
From October 2024, exact start date to be confirmed by NHS England in due course:
- those aged 65 years and over
- those aged 18 years to under 65 years in clinical risk groups
- those in long-stay residential care homes
- carers in receipt of carer’s allowance, or those who are the main carer of an elderly or disabled person
- close contacts of immunocompromised individuals
- frontline workers in a social care setting without an employer led occupational health scheme including those working for a registered residential care or nursing home, registered domiciliary care providers, voluntary managed hospice providers and those that are employed by those who receive direct payments (personal budgets) or Personal Health budgets, such as Personal Assistants
RSV Vaccination program - commences 1st Sept 2024
From 1 September 2024, 2 new respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccination programmes will be introduced:
Programme for older adults aged 75 to 79 years old
All adults turning 75 years old on or after 1 September 2024 will be eligible for the routine programme and should be offered a single dose of the RSV vaccine. A one-off catch-up campaign for those already aged 75 to 79 years old on 1 September 2024 will be undertaken at the earliest opportunity.
Programme for pregnant women to protect infants
All women who are at least 28 weeks pregnant (the eligible cohort) on 1 September 2024, will be offered a single dose of the RSV vaccine. After that, pregnant women will become eligible as they reach 28 weeks gestation and remain eligible up to birth.
For more infor please click on this link
New Telephone system - NHS England digital agenda compliant
New telephone system
July 9th , 2024
NATIONAL DATA OPT-OUT SERVICE
The national data opt-out service was introduced on 25 May 2018 following recommendations by the National Data Guardian who in her independent review of data security, consent and opt-outs (2016) said: 'A patient should be able to state their preference once (online or in person), confident in the knowledge that this will be applied across the health and social care system.'
The Patient Data Choices Project is a collaboration between NHS Digital and the Royal College of General Practitioners and has delivered a series of events and portfolio of resources to inform primary care teams on the national data opt-out so that they can confidently and accurately advise patients and carers on their data sharing options, and to support primary care teams to uphold the national data opt-out within their own practice.
How patients set a national data opt-out
Summary
- People will be able to set an opt-out online, through a supported telephone service (like the eReferral service) or by submitting a paper request
- Children under 13 and those who lack capacity may not be able to set an opt-out themselves. In such cases individuals who have a formal, legal relationship to act on behalf of the patient (i.e. somebody who has parental responsibility, a legal power of attorney or court appointed deputy) will be able to set a proxy opt-out on their behalf. This is to enable equality of opportunity for everyone to be able to opt out and will also reduce the burden on GP practices
- The national data opt-out choice is set by the individual and does not require any action by the person’s General Practice
Detail
Routes to set an opt-out - online
The preferred route for people to set a national data opt-out preference is through the nhs.uk website, which has information about the national data opt-out to help people make an informed choice. To set an opt-out online, the individual is required to verify their identity by providing their name, date of birth, NHS number or postcode. They will then be presented with their mobile phone number and/or email from the Patient Demographic Service (PDS) so that a secure one-time password can be sent to them. This ensures the patient is in control of the process.
If a person cannot confirm their identity they can use the telephone service to guide them through the service or set a choice on their behalf. The website is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from 25 May 2018.
Routes to set an opt-out - Supported telephone service
People can set their national data opt-out choice using a telephone service on 0300 303 5678. When calling this service patients will need to confirm their identity by providing their NHS number, name and date of birth. If the patient does not know their NHS number the contact centre may ask for their postcode to confirm a match. The patient will also need to have an email or mobile phone number recorded on PDS to receive a verification passcode.
Calls to this number should cost no more than calls to a normal personal or business geographic landline number (numbers starting with 01 or 02), whether calling from a landline, or mobile phone.
The telephone service is available 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, excluding English bank/ public holidays.
Routes to set an opt-out – Non-digital (Paper)
Patients can also obtain a form to fill in and post to register a national data opt-out preference. The form can be obtained via the nhs.uk website or the national telephone service. To use the non-digital route a patient can either use their NHS number, or two forms of identification one to confirm name and the other to confirm address. When a patient updates their choices through the non-digital paper route they will receive confirmation, and can choose to receive this by letter or email.
Cannot be set via GP
The national data opt-out choice CANNOT be set by the GP or other member of the practice staff and is not stored or implemented through the use of codes in the GP system. National data opt-outs are held by NHS Digital on a central repository on the Spine.
In order to ensure that identifiable data for patients with a restricted access setting against their PDS record (also known as a Sensitive flag) is not released for secondary purposes, a national data opt-out has been set for all patients with such a restricted access setting. The process for setting this flag on PDS has been updated so that a national data opt-out can be set or un-set as part of this process. See the ‘Restricting access to a patient’s demographic record’ section below.
Children and People with Lasting Power of Attorney
Patients can set their national data opt-out choice from the age of 13 through any of the available routes. This age is based on the minimum age in data protection legislation and is not based on any assessment of competence. Any national data opt-out set by a parent or guardian prior to age 13 will remain in place unless and until the patient reviews and changes it.
For children under the age of 13 a national data opt-out can be recorded by someone with parental responsibility. Once a young person passes the age of 13 the person with parental responsibility will no longer be able to set a national data opt-out.
Someone with legal authority to act on behalf of an individual e.g. Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) or court appointed deputy can set a national data opt-out choice on behalf of that individual. For example a daughter with LPA could set a choice for her elderly parent with dementia. Anyone who wishes to set a national data opt-out on behalf of someone else will need to use the ‘by post’ forms or speak to the telephone service.
To set an opt-out on behalf of someone else, they will need to supply their own name, address, postcode and a signed declaration of parental responsibility to act on behalf of the individual for whom they are setting a choice. They will also need either the name and NHS number for the person for whom they are setting the choice, or name and two identification documents (one for name and one for address).