Playbook, medical practice
Getting a patient off the chat and onto the right number
A surgery has three destinations rather than one, and choosing between them is a clinical judgement. Since the assistant cannot make it, the safe design is to name all three, in the same order, every single time.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for asking for a person holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- A practice has three destinations rather than one, the emergency services, the out of hours service and the surgery itself, so the handover is a routing decision the assistant is not qualified to make.
- Because it cannot route, the safe design is a fixed order with the emergency route first, so the patient does the routing rather than the assistant.
- The word urgent in a patient's message is the only signal available and has to be taken at face value, since there is no way to weigh it and no reason to try.
- A request for a person at a surgery is frequently about a result, a referral or a letter, none of which can be discussed in the chat even once a person is involved.
How it arrives
- i need to speak to a doctor today
- can someone ring me back urgently
- is there a real person i can talk to
- who do i call when you are closed
- i need to talk to somebody about my results
- how do i get through to reception
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The surgery number and when it is answered | Including any separate line for urgent calls and the times each is staffed. Quoted exactly, never reconstructed. |
|---|---|
| The out of hours arrangement | Which service covers the practice when it is closed and the number for it, written as a patient would need to use it. |
| The emergency number as you publish it | In your own material, so the assistant is repeating the practice rather than improvising a national convention. |
| What reception can deal with and what needs a clinician | So the assistant knows which requests can be taken as a message and which cannot be handled by anybody it can reach. |
The reply
If this is an emergency, please use the emergency number now. If the surgery is closed, the out of hours number is on our contact page [1]. Otherwise reception is on the number at the top of this page during opening hours [2]. If you would like the team to contact you about something that is not urgent, leave your name, an email and a short message and I will pass it on.
The three routes appear in a fixed order with the most serious first, so nobody has to read to the end to find the one that applies to them. The message form is offered last and only for the non urgent case, which stops it becoming a slower substitute for a telephone call.
Where it stops
The trigger. Any message that uses the word urgent, asks to speak to a doctor today, or describes something happening right now.
Please use the emergency number if this is urgent, or the surgery number during opening hours. I am not able to assess anything or arrange a call myself.
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 say how quickly somebody will be called back.
- Never say whether a described situation counts as an emergency.
- Never offer the message form as an alternative to the emergency route.
- Never take clinical details into a message and imply a clinician will read them.
Questions
- Is a fixed three route reply not repetitive?
- It is, deliberately. Repetition is the point: the patient should get the same reliable list every time rather than a reply that varies with how the question was phrased.
- Can it take a message about test results?
- It can take a message asking the practice to make contact. It must not discuss results, and the wording should not suggest that anything clinical will be answered by email.
- What if somebody just wants reception?
- Give the number and the hours it is answered. Most people asking for a person at a surgery want the switchboard, and a number solves it faster than a form.
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 asking for a person in generalThe design question at the centre of a support assistant. Offer early, offer once, collect what a reply needs, promise a time you can keep.
- 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.
- Referred in the spring, still nothing: what a practice can answerThe wait patients ask a practice about is usually one it cannot see. Referrals, the urgent route and what may honestly be said.
- Saturday afternoon, and the message is about a repeat prescriptionBank holiday prescriptions, hub appointments held at another surgery and the closed route. What to publish for the hours you are shut.
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.