Who are we?

The group as the name suggests is made up mainly of patients of the practice with support from medical centre staff.  Our first meeting was held in September 2009.

What do we do?

We have regular, informal meetings to discuss issues affecting both the practice and patients. We now have an agreed set of working objectives.

Our remit is to work with the practice to affect and improve all manner of patient experiences from access to appointments, newsletters, the colour of paint used in the building and so on!  However, our main focus in the coming months is to improve communication. 

How can you join us?

Our meetings are usually one morning every 6 weeks although this is open to change.  We would welcome new members so if you have a particular interest in the practice or a skill you feel will benefit the group, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Meetings start at 10:30am at the surgery.

Are you for it?   Or against it?

A review of Klinik’s data shows that 54% of us used it and 56% used the phone or went in person to the surgery in the first three weeks of this month.

And, as everybody has to answer the same set of questions, each person using the phone means another patient is having to wait an extra 8-10 minutes to speak to a receptionist.

Peak demand phone time is 8.00am, falling slightly until about 10.00 am and then dropping off.

Peak demand time when booking online doesn’t exist.

Your Klinik enquiry is available for assessment the minute you submit it. If it’s urgent the Artificial Intelligence pushes it to the top of the list for the Duty team to deal with.

Klinik is monitored by the Duty team until 2pm each day.  After 2pm your enquiry will be kept safely and looked at the next morning, there is no need to call back the next day. If you enter a query after 2pm and the Artificial Intelligence identifies you have a more urgent need Klinik will direct you to contact 999 or A&E.

And what I like about Klinik is that once I have ticked all the boxes which get me to the end there is a large empty welcoming space to give all the extra detail you would like to tell your doctor if you had a 30 minute appointment instead of just ten.

Klinik is not the right answer for everybody and the receptionists are there to help those patients.

As somebody said when sending in photographs was discussed, “But my father wouldn’t know how to send in a photograph” And there is no pressure to do so. Either a video appointment can be made or an appointment to go into the surgery to see the right person.

So if you can you use a computer, or smartphone and don’t want to hang around on the phone frustrating yourself and others, try Klinik.

Then let us know how it can be improved.

The group would like to contact patients on occasion by email and/or text so that they can obtain the views of the widest group of patients possible. We would like to obtain your email address and mobile phone number to do this. Please complete the Patient Contact Form to provide your consent for this.