Playbook, medical practice
What a surgery assistant should say about access needs
These questions are asked in advance by somebody deciding whether they can attend at all. A vague answer does not annoy them, it stops them coming, and in a health setting that is a different order of failure.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for accessibility requests holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Access requests at a practice are usually made before booking, by somebody working out whether attending is possible at all, so a vague answer costs an appointment rather than a sale.
- The requests are far wider than a ramp: interpreters, a hearing loop, large print or easy read letters, a longer appointment, a quiet place to wait, or somebody accompanying the patient.
- Health services carry duties on reasonable adjustments in most places, so the answer has to describe what the practice will actually arrange rather than what it would like to.
- Arranging an adjustment is an act rather than information, so the assistant can describe the process and then must take a name so that a person can set it up.
How it arrives
- is there step free access
- can you book an interpreter for my appointment
- do you have a hearing loop
- can i have my letters in large print
- is there a quiet room to wait in
- can i have a longer appointment
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Physical access, described room by room | The entrance, any lift, the accessible toilet, the parking bay and the route from it. Describe what is there rather than labelling the building accessible. |
|---|---|
| Interpreter and language support arrangements | Which languages are covered, how far ahead you need to know, and whether a family member may interpret. Practices differ on the last one and patients assume. |
| Alternative formats | Large print, easy read, braille, or a text alternative to a letter, and how somebody asks for one as a standing preference rather than each time. |
| Who arranges an adjustment and how far ahead | The role responsible, the notice required, and how the adjustment is recorded so it does not have to be requested again. |
The reply
The main entrance is step free and there is an accessible toilet on the ground floor [1]. Interpreters are arranged by the practice rather than booked online, and we ask for notice so it can be organised [2]. I cannot set that up from here, so if you leave your name, an email and what you need, it goes to the team, and they will arrange it and note it on your record so you do not have to ask again.
The fixed physical facts are answered outright, because they never change and there is no reason to make somebody wait for them. Everything that needs arranging is separated from those facts, and the assistant does not pretend to arrange it. The last clause matters: it tells the patient the request will stick.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor needs an adjustment arranged for a particular appointment, or describes a need your published access information does not cover.
I cannot arrange that myself. Give me your name, an email and what you need, and the team will set it up and add it to your record.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never promise that an interpreter, a longer appointment or a specific room will be available.
- Never describe a route or a facility as accessible unless your own access information says so.
- Never ask why somebody needs an adjustment.
- Never treat what somebody discloses about a condition as though the form were a medical record.
Questions
- Is it appropriate for a chat window to handle these at all?
- For the factual half, yes, and often better than a phone call, since somebody who finds phone calls difficult is exactly the person asking. The arranging half still needs a person, which is what the handover is for.
- What should we index first?
- A plain description of the building and the entrance. It is fixed, it is asked constantly, and most practice websites describe it in one line that answers nothing.
- Does the message form ask enough?
- It collects a name, an email and a message, which is enough for a patient to describe what they need. Do not try to turn it into a structured needs assessment.
Keep reading
- Everything for a medical practiceAdministrative questions a practice can safely automate, the symptom questions it must never touch, and how to word the refusal.
- Handling accessibility requests in generalTwo different things arrive as one message. A published accessibility statement answers the first. The second is a request, and it needs a person.
- Handling a request to delete or correct a medical recordMedical records cannot simply be erased. Explaining deletion, corrections and where a formal request has to go.
- Getting a patient off the chat and onto the right numberAt a practice the handover is a routing decision between three numbers, and the assistant is not the thing that routes.
- The patient wants to cancel. Is it even our appointment?A telephone slot is a call back window, not a time. What a surgery can say about cancelling, reply codes and missed appointments.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.