All surgeries that use EMIS can now improve patient access by using an automated telephone appointment booking system which enables patients to book appointments around the clock. Known as Patient Partner, the automated system is now fully accredited to work on all EMIS platforms.

Telecoms specialists Voice Connect (www.voiceconnect.co.uk) created Patient Partner for GPs almost 10 years ago, and it is now used by over 2.5 million patients across the UK. The automated system allows patients to contact their surgery at any time of the night or day to book, cancel and change their appointments.

With over 50% of GPs in the UK now using an EMIS clinical database, the integration is good news for both surgeries and patients. The new integration status means that Patient Partner now fully amalgamates with all EMIS variations including   LV, PCS LAN PCS WAN, PCS (in Scotland) and Web.

Official estimates put the cost of missed patient appointments to the NHS at around £600 million a year.  Patient Partner was originally developed to help combat this issue, and the news that approval has been given for it to be used by so many surgeries is highly likely to have a positive effect on reducing DNAs across the UK.

Stefan Olsberg, MD of Voice Connect comments “Using Patient Partner has proved to be a very positive experience for many GPs.  Not only has it cut DNA rates and saved practices money, it has also given patients greatly improved access to the services they provide.  Now that we are able to integrate fully with so many additional practices, it should mean that we are able to improve the service that thousands of GPs can offer their patients.”

EMIS is the leading primary care software provider, holding 39 million patient records. The company works with carefully selected partners only after a series of rigorous tests have been passed. Voice Connect were established in 1991 and have worked closely with PCTs and GPs’ surgeries across the UK for over 20 years. They provide a range of unified communication services for doctors’ surgeries as well as local authorities and private organisations.

The Pagoda Surgery in Richmond has introduced a new booking system which enables patients to call the practice at any time to book or cancel appointments. The system, known as Patient Partner, went live at the surgery in September. It has been specially designed to ease the problems that patients can face when trying to contact their GP, offering increased choice in how and when appointments are made.

The surgery, which is situated on Pagoda Avenue, has 7,200 patients on its register. It has already introduced an online system for ordering repeat prescriptions at www.pagodasurgery.co.uk. The new phone service is the latest initiative designed to improve access for patients and enhance the overall patient experience. “Patient Partner will help ease call congestion by giving patients more choice in when they can call,” explains Deborah Taylor, Practice Manager at The Pagoda Surgery. “This frees up phone lines at traditionally busier times of day for important queries and emergencies.”

The automated system works by detecting spaces in the doctors’ diaries, allowing the patient to choose the appointment time which best suits them by pressing a button on their touch tone phone.

“We realise that some patients may prefer to book appointments in the traditional way and they may continue to do so if they wish,” comments Deborah. “However, by providing this round the clock service, we can offer greater flexibility for all our patients, including those who work unsociable hours. We also believe that it will free up valuable time for our receptionists to attend to patient care.”

A survey carried out by the DPP (Developing Patient Partnerships) and the Institute of Healthcare revealed that almost a quarter of a million patients across the country fail to attend appointments each week. “Patient Partner was developed to help with this issue,” explains Stefan Olsberg, Managing Director of Voice Connect. “By making it easier to contact the surgery, we hope that the new system will help to diminish the number of wasted appointments which has to be good news for patients.”

The Rushey Green Group Practice is located close to Lewisham Hospital in Catford, a busy area of south east London. The surgery has over 9,300 patients on its list, many of whom are transient, plus a substantial proportion of multi-ethnic patients. There are a significant number of residents housed in temporary bedsit and hostel accommodation within the area, which can present social and clinical challenges. The practice also has a large number of African and Caribbean patients with a subsequently high prevalence of hypertension, diabetes and stroke.

A teaching practice, Rushey Green Group Practice currently employs eleven doctors, three nurses, seven reception staff and four members of staff who work in general admin. It is a busy urban practice which also operates extended opening hours from 8am to 8pm, Monday to Friday in order to accommodate its needy patient base – and to offer the best possible service to local residents.

However, like many GP surgeries across the UK in both urban and rural areas, call congestion at peak times was a common problem at the practice, putting a lot of pressure on receptionists, particularly at peak call times like first thing in the morning when the surgery opened. Senior staff at Rushey Green were aware of the issue with the phones and decided that installing an automated appointment booking system would both complement the extended opening hours, and improve call handling at the surgery.

“We were keen to improve patient access which is an important target for all GP practices,” comments Antonia Makinde, Practice and Finance Manager at Rushey Green. “We hoped that the system would reduce pressure on our receptionists in terms of volume of calls by offering our patients more flexibility in when they could call.” Accordingly, the practice decided to go ahead with the service and first went live with Patient Partner in July 2009.

Change can be difficult, and Antonia and the partners had some concerns about how their patients would respond to the new automated system. “Whilst we still have a few patients who don’t like the system and would prefer to speak to a receptionist, many others really love it,” comments Antonia. “In fact, I would estimate that around one third of our appointments are booked using Patient Partner, which has had a significant and positive impact on reception. Our ability to handle calls at peak times and also throughout the day has really improved. In addition, it means that we can say to patients that they have no excuse for not cancelling their appointments as they can rearrange or cancel them at anytime, not just when we are open.”

The Patient Partner system has helped to enhance aspects of the day to day life of the practice, particularly reducing call congestion. This has had the knock on effect of freeing up time for the practice receptionists so they can carry out other important tasks as the system does the work of making the appointments. “We are still working on making the patients more aware of the system so more can use it,” comments Antonia.

Patient Partner’s best three features are:

1. Patients have the ability to book, cancel or change their appointments.

2. Patients have no excuse for not cancelling their appointment.

3. The good level of support from Voice Connect.

Staff at Rushey Green feel that Patient Partner has achieved what was originally hoped for from the system: patients now find it easier to contact the surgery and call handling and communication has generally improved, although there is still the possibility of a greater uptake of the service by patients who have not yet used it.

Antonia is also full of praise for Voice Connect as a company, and is pleased with how the whole transition process was managed. “We have had fantastic support from Voice Connect throughout: they respond to queries promptly, are responsive to our needs and open to ideas,” she says. “Really, it’s a case of so far, so good with the system.” Antonia would also advise any practice with similar access issues to consider installing Patient Partner. “I personally really like the system, so I’d say, just go for it!”

Voice Connect has launched a new survey service for GPs’ surgeries. Engineers at the Groby based unified communications specialists Voice Connect have designed the service for GPs who want feedback from patients to help improve access and services.

As part of the Patient Participation Groups initiative that has been set up by the coalition government, GPs are rewarded for getting feedback from their patients regarding the quality of service provided. However, the cost of reaching large numbers of patients from representative groups is difficult to achieve. The new automated survey service has been designed to make the whole process quicker and cheaper.

“We’ve worked with many areas of the NHS for more than two decades, but GPs have been a large focus for our business over the past eight years,” says Voice Connect’s Managing Director Stefan Olsberg. “This new service is a simple way to collect patient views with minimum cost and work. Because of its automated collection facility, the service almost completely eliminates staff involvement.”

The new survey module allows patients to answer automated questions about the performance of a surgery during a phone call or using a touch screen in the surgery. Surveys can be anonymous, and all results are automatically compiled into one central database. GPs receive £1.10 per patient registered at the surgery in both this and the next financial year.

The system can also be set to flag up special ‘at risk’ areas. For example, if a patient indicates that they are a heavy smoker, once they have completed the questionnaire they can be directed to reception to find out about stop smoking sessions offered by the surgery.

Established in 1991, Voice Connect has worked closely with PCTs and GPs’ surgeries across the UK for over 20 years. The company provides a range of unified communication solutions for doctors’ surgeries, including their popular automated telephone appointment booking system Patient Partner as well as Medical Messenger and Smart Mail, a mailing service developed especially for GP surgeries.

Patients could be forced to make doctors’ appointments through remote call centres under an efficiency drive to save the NHS £600 million.

A report commissioned by the Department of Health says GPs’ administrative support teams should be radically altered to cut costs. The plan would involve centralising appointment bookings through a national call centre, clearing surgeries of thousands of staff.

However, doctors and surgery staff say the proposal is “flawed”. Unison, the public sector trade union, said that remote call centres could not provide the “very personal service” that patients needed.

The report by the NHS Confederation’s Foundation Trust Network looks at ways back office functions could be streamlined. It says the message to all NHS bodies is that they must “simplify, standardise and share” to save money.

The NHS is “highly fragmented”, with a total of £2.8 billion spent on back office functions. The trust, headed by Tony Spotswood, chief executive of Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals, recommends: “There are substantial efficiency gains to be achieved through transforming GP back office functions, such as the potential to move towards regional and national GP appointment centres.”

A Unison spokesman said surgery staff not only made appointments. He said: “A call centre cannot begin to do the job these staff do.” Doctors and their support staff were more forthright. Dr David Iles from Southampton commented “Even your average alien would consider this hilarious stupidity.”

Stephan Olsberg MD of Voice Connect comments “There are far better ways to improve the efficiency of patients booking appointments with their GP. Systems such as our own Patient Partner allow around the clock access, giving the patient the ability to book, cancel or move their appointment without the need to speak to a receptionist or a call centre”

VC Relay ‘has fantastic power to communicate, reassure and educate’ says Warrington Trading Standards

Warrington is a large industrial town with over 190.000 residents located between Manchester and Liverpool. The town’s borough council has a proactive Trading Standards department whose mission is ‘to promote a fair and safe trading environment’. This remit includes ensuring that traders describe goods accurately, that safety standards are met, that products are priced properly and that all legal requirements are fulfilled. The department also provides an advice service for members of the public who have purchased goods or services that they are unhappy with, offering guidance on what action can be taken.

In 2004, the authority set up iCAN (the Consumer Alert Network) to tackle illegal trading practices taking place in the local area. Central to the success of this venture was the facility to open up lines of communication, enabling large numbers of the public to be contacted quickly. So, in addition to the quarterly ‘iCAN’ newsletter sent out to members, the authority needed the facility to issue regular updates and warnings to targeted groups at short notice.

After some research into the options available, Voice Connect’s VC Relay system was installed that same year. This system, used by police forces and Neighbourhood Watch schemes across the UK, enabled the network to quickly send out large numbers of messages to their database members via text, voicemail or e-mail.

Roger Mapleson, Consumer and Business Protection Manager for Warrington and Halton Trading Standards, explains how use of the system has grown since it was first installed. “We now have over 3,700 residents on the iCAN database using VC Relay to communicate with us and each other,” he says. “We have worked hard to establish relationships within the community, specifically with residents in the more deprived areas of the borough. We have been really pleased with the positive uptake of the scheme.”

So successful has the iCAN initiative with VC Relay been, that the neighbouring Halton Trading Standards Authority has joined with Warrington. “Staff at Halton work closely with us, using VC Relay and the model of the original iCAN scheme,” explains Roger. “They have direct access to our server and are able to operate VC Relay from their own PCs.” The additional revenue that this raised also enabled Warrington TS to upgrade the system. Trafford Metropolitan Borough also signed up to the system last year and are now building and developing their own iCAN using the system.

VC Relay is regularly used to warn people about various scams, doorstep crimes and illegal practices which go on in the town, as well as giving members relevant consumer advice. Two examples of recent incidents in which Warrington TS successfully used VC Relay to notify the public include the apprehension of the owner of a bogus damp proofing company which had been operating in the Cheshire region for over 10 years and the arrest of those responsible for a sham charity collection. In the first example, the use of VC Relay enabled Warrington TS to alert iCAN members to the damp proofing scam as soon as the company started cold calling and leafleting. In the second example, an iCAN member alerted the organisation to their suspicions about a clothing collection, allegedly by a national charity. The collections were monitored by TS staff and found to be bogus, resulting in an arrest.

VC Relay’s best three features according to Warrington Trading Standards:

1. The system is easy to use.

2. It has fantastic power to communicate, reassure and educate.

3. It makes it easy for members to feedback to us.

Based on the success with VC Relay, Warrington Borough Council have recently installed Voice Connect’s Lone Worker system which protects workers on site visits or those who work alone. As the council already had the core component of the VCII hub, adding the Lone Worker system was an economically sound decision. The system is currently being piloted by a section of staff in the authority.

Roger is very positive about the whole experience of using VC Relay and the impact that it has had on the iCAN initiative. “Voice Connect has been an excellent company to work with. They are constantly innovating and coming up with new solutions and have always sorted out any technical glitches quickly. We have every confidence in them as a company and VC Relay as a product and are happy to recommend them to other local authorities. Good communication is the cornerstone of iCAN’s success – VC Relay has played a significant part in enabling us to take our message out into the wider community.”

Ware residents are now able to book appointments ‘around the clock’ at local surgery

Church Street Surgery in Ware has introduced a new phone system which enables patients to call the practice at any time to book or cancel appointments. The system, known as Patient Partner, went live at the surgery in June. It has been specially designed to ease the problems that patients can face when trying to contact their GP, offering increased choice in how and when appointments are made.

The surgery has 8,600 patients on its register. It has already introduced an online system for booking appointments and ordering repeat prescriptions at www.churchstware.org. The new phone service is the latest initiative designed to improve access for patients and enhance the overall patient experience. “Patient Partner will help ease call congestion by giving patients more choice in when they can call,” explains Val Terry, Business Manager at Church Street. “This frees up phone lines at traditionally busier times of day for important queries and emergencies.”

The automated system works by detecting spaces in the doctors’ diaries, allowing the patient to choose the appointment time which best suits them by pressing a button on their touch tone phone. The system also integrates fully with the online booking and repeat prescription service.

“We realise that some patients may prefer to book appointments in the traditional way and they may continue to do so if they wish,” comments Val. “However, by providing this round the clock service, we can offer greater flexibility for all our patients, including those who work unsociable hours. We also believe that it will free up valuable time for our receptionists to attend to patient care.”

A survey carried out by the DPP (Developing Patient Partnerships) and the Institute of Healthcare revealed that almost a quarter of a million patients across the country fail to attend appointments each week. “Patient Partner was developed to help with this issue,” explains Stefan Olsberg, Managing Director of Voice Connect. “By making it easier to contact the surgery, we hope that the new system will help to diminish the number of wasted appointments which has to be good news for patients.”

Jockey Road find their experience of Patient Partner ‘a positive one’

Jockey Road Medical Centre is situated near to Sutton Coldfield in a residential area comprised of a mainly middle class populace with small pockets of deprivation. Part of the Midlands Medical Partnership (www.mmpmedical.com), which administers services for around 50,000 patients across 8 surgeries in the Birmingham area, Jockey Road currently has 8,260 residents on its patient list. The centre staff include 5 doctors, 3 nurses and 13 staff in a range of administrative, reception and support roles.

Call congestion, particularly at the peak times when a surgery first opens, is an issue for many GP practices of all sizes and locations. The staff at Jockey Road were aware of this problem at their own surgery and were keen to find ways of improving patient communication with the practice, as well as enhancing patient access and easing the pressure on their busy reception desk. They decided that an automated phone appointment booking system could be the answer, and installed Patient Partner in 2009. The practice was also the first surgery in the UK to use Patient Partner with the Vision Enterprise System through the central server.

However, change isn’t always well received by patients, so the staff at Jockey Road had some apprehension prior to installing the system. “We were a little concerned about how our patients would respond to using an automated system for the first time,” comments Sonia Cox, Practice Manager at Jockey Road Medical Centre. “Whilst it’s true that initially some patients expressed a preference for speaking to a receptionist, the system actually bedded in quickly and within a couple of months we received lots of positive feedback from patients of all ages who found the system easier to use than expected.”

Sonia and the reception staff are pleased with the way that the Patient Partner system is working at the surgery and feel that it has helped to improve communication for both staff and patients. “Patient Partner has more than lived up to our expectations and has helped us to improve patient access as we had hoped,” she comments. “The system has helped to reduce call congestion at peak times and has also enabled us to handle a high volume of calls more efficiently. This has the added bonus of making it easier for patients with urgent problems to get through to reception quickly.”

Patient Partner’s top three features

1. The system is easy to use for old and young alike.

2. Patients can bypass the appointment section if they need to speak to a person.

3. You really notice the difference when you don’t have it!

“The system has become such an integral part of the surgery and our day to day routine that we don’t really think about it,” adds Sonia. “However, we really appreciated its value and noticed the difference that it makes to the life of the practice when we had some down time during a recent data merge.”

Sonia also rates the service from Voice Connect very highly. “The support from Voice Connect as a company has been extremely good throughout the whole process. We have always found the staff extremely helpful and any actions requested have been dealt with quickly. All in all we are very happy with the system and how it works within our practice.”

Furthermore, Sonia would be happy to recommend Patient Partner to other surgeries looking to improve their patient access and communication. She would also urge surgery staff not to be deterred by the possibility of an initial negative reaction from patients to the prospect of an automated system.  “People rarely embrace change and although there were some concerns raised by patients at first, the system was used regularly very quickly. In addition, the feedback from the patients was very positive from the outset, reporting that they found the system easy to use. Certainly, our own experience of using Patient Partner has been a very positive one.”

Bermondsey and Lansdowne Medical Mission say that Patient Partner ‘does just what was promised’

The Bermondsey and Lansdowne Medical Mission is a relatively large GP surgery in Bermondsey, located between the Elephant and Castle and Tower Bridge just south of the Thames. As is usual in many urban areas, the practice’s patient demographic is multicultural with patients from a range of ethic backgrounds and social class. The local residents live in a mix of private and social housing.

The medical centre, which has over 13,000 patients registered on its list, is one of two surgeries which make up the central London practice. There are currently 4 partners plus 12 additional GPs working part time at the surgery, with another 22 staff employed in a range of clinical and administrative roles. The practice runs a range of clinics, including antenatal care and family planning, as well as offering services to advise on health issues such as hypertension, diabetes and nutrition.

Bermondsey and Lansdowne Medical Mission has been using Voice Connect’s automated Patient Partner system since March 2005. The system was originally introduced as a way of reducing the call congestion that was particularly common at peak times, and as a way of offering patients increased flexibility in booking appointments. Whilst the surgery currently has four telephone lines available for call queuing, it can still be difficult to handle a large influx of calls when the surgery opens at 8.30am, a time when people often call to make emergency or routine appointments.

“We felt that, by giving our patients more choice in when they could call to make appointments, we would be able to reduce call congestion at peak times,” comments Sonia McVinnie, Assistant Practice Manager at Bermondsey and Lansdowne. “We did have some concerns prior to installation about how we would collect telephone numbers so that our patients could have access to the system and also how we would advertise the system.  However, the support from the Voice Connect helpdesk has always been good – they are on hand whenever they are needed.”

Whilst the surgery currently has four telephone lines available for call queuing, it can still be difficult to handle a large influx of calls when the surgery opens at 8.30am, a time when people often call to make emergency or routine appointments. So a system like Patient Partner, which allows people to make appointments if they feel unwell in the night rather than when they get up, or late in the evening rather than before leaving for work in the morning, means that call traffic at these times is reduced.

Assistant Practice Manager Sonia reports that Patient Partner has made a significant contribution to the day to day running of the practice by improving the whole call handling process, through reducing call congestion and freeing up receptionists’ time so they are able to deal with other administrative task to facilitate the smooth running of the practice. “Because patients are able to book or cancel their appointments at any time, they now find it easier to make an appointment and access has improved, which was one of our main aims in introducing the system.”

Patient Partner’s top three features are:

1. Reduces time and workload for reception staff.
2. The system is available 24 hours a day.
3. The system has improved patient access.

Sonia also reports that the patients are happy with the system, and that removing the frustration of queuing and the engaged tone combined with improved access has increased patient satisfaction. “We didn’t realise quite how many patients were using the system until we audited the figures – and we were pleasantly surprised at how many appointments have been made in the past 12 months using the Patient Partner service,” explains Sonia.  However, the practice is keen to continue proactively promoting the service and encouraging further patient uptake with support from Voice Connect.

After using the system for several years, the Bermondsey and Lansdowne Medical Mission is happy to recommend Patient Partner to other practices who want to improve patient access to their services, but advises that the system works best when adjusted to the individual surgery’s needs. “We are happy with the Patient Partner system and so are our patients – it does just what was promised.  We are pleased to be able to use the service to give our patients an increased choice and enhance their experience at our centre.”

Jockey Road find their experience of Patient Partner ‘a positive one’

Jockey Road Medical Centre is situated near to Sutton Coldfield in a residential area comprised of a mainly middle class populace with small pockets of deprivation. Part of the Midlands Medical Partnership (www.mmpmedical.com), which administers services for around 50,000 patients across 8 surgeries in the Birmingham area, Jockey Road currently has 8,260 residents on its patient list. The centre staff include 5 doctors, 3 nurses and 13 staff in a range of administrative, reception and support roles.

Call congestion, particularly at the peak times when a surgery first opens, is an issue for many GP practices of all sizes and locations. The staff at Jockey Road were aware of this problem at their own surgery and were keen to find ways of improving patient communication with the practice, as well as enhancing patient access and easing the pressure on their busy reception desk. They decided that an automated phone appointment booking system could be the answer, and installed Patient Partner in 2009. The practice was also the first surgery in the UK to use Patient Partner with the Vision Enterprise System through the central server.

However, change isn’t always well received by patients, so the staff at Jockey Road had some apprehension prior to installing the system. “We were a little concerned about how our patients would respond to using an automated system for the first time,” comments Sonia Cox, Practice Manager at Jockey Road Medical Centre. “Whilst it’s true that initially some patients expressed a preference for speaking to a receptionist, the system actually bedded in quickly and within a couple of months we received lots of positive feedback from patients of all ages who found the system easier to use than expected.”

Sonia and the reception staff are pleased with the way that the Patient Partner system is working at the surgery and feel that it has helped to improve communication for both staff and patients. “Patient Partner has more than lived up to our expectations and has helped us to improve patient access as we had hoped,” she comments. “The system has helped to reduce call congestion at peak times and has also enabled us to handle a high volume of calls more efficiently. This has the added bonus of making it easier for patients with urgent problems to get through to reception quickly.”

Patient Partner’s top three features

1. The system is easy to use for old and young alike.

2. Patients can bypass the appointment section if they need to speak to a person.

3. You really notice the difference when you don’t have it!

“The system has become such an integral part of the surgery and our day to day routine that we don’t really think about it,” adds Sonia. “However, we really appreciated its value and noticed the difference that it makes to the life of the practice when we had some down time during a recent data merge.”

Sonia also rates the service from Voice Connect very highly. “The support from Voice Connect as a company has been extremely good throughout the whole process. We have always found the staff extremely helpful and any actions requested have been dealt with quickly. All in all we are very happy with the system and how it works within our practice.”

Furthermore, Sonia would be happy to recommend Patient Partner to other surgeries looking to improve their patient access and communication. She would also urge surgery staff not to be deterred by the possibility of an initial negative reaction from patients to the prospect of an automated system.  “People rarely embrace change and although there were some concerns raised by patients at first, the system was used regularly very quickly. In addition, the feedback from the patients was very positive from the outset, reporting that they found the system easy to use. Certainly, our own experience of using Patient Partner has been a very positive one.”