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.”

A new service which enables patients to order repeat prescriptions by telephone even when the practice is closed has been launched last month (February). The service has been developed by unified communications company Voice Connect, who supply the automated telephone appointment booking system known as Patient Partner to around 600 GPs’ surgeries across the UK.

The system works by offering the caller a series of automated options to order their prescription. To ensure that absolute confidentiality is maintained, patients can only access the service by entering a PIN number. The new module currently integrates with clinical software providers TPP’s SystmOne software, which is installed at many practices across the UK.

“We developed our repeat prescription service because it was requested by so many of our customers,” explains Stefan Olsberg, Managing Director of Voice Connect. “Our clients tell us that Patient Partner has dramatically reduced the workload on reception. Now, with the new repeat prescription service, we have removed another pressured area of work that uses up reception time and resources. In fact, interest has been so high that we are offering the solution not just as part of Patient Partner, but also as a standalone service.”

Many practices no longer take repeat prescriptions over the phone due to the amount of work involved.  As the new service removes the need for patients to deal with a receptionist, the system frees up reception staff to attend to other practice duties whilst also freeing up telephone lines for emergency calls. It also offers improved access and flexibility for patients.

“Patient access is an important issue for GP practices; in order to improve the patient experience, surgeries have had to look for ways to become more flexible and offer patients increased choice – including how and when they contact the practice for appointments and essential services,” adds Mr Olsberg. “All of these developments recognise the fact that, as patients lead increasingly busy lives, access to their GP services must be more flexible.”

Andrew Leece, Clinical Systems Analyst for TPP who also supply SystmOnline which allows patients to manage appointments and order repeat prescriptions 24 hours a day via the internet, is delighted at the new product integration. “We’re really pleased to be working with Patient Partner. This development gives our users the ability to offer even more flexibility to their patients and the fact that the repeat prescriptions service works exclusively with SystmOne is fantastic.”

96% of surgeries questioned say automated appointments system improves patient choice

A new survey published this week reports that surgeries using automated phone appointment booking systems to enable patients to manage their own appointments feel that they have significantly increased patient choice. The survey, carried out by IMC Research on behalf of telecoms company Voice Connect, was sent out to over 3,000 GP practices across the UK. As part of the study, practice managers and partners were asked to identify the functions and services  they felt would enhance the appointment process and improve patient access.

The advantage of an automated system is that it enables patients to call their surgery number at any time of the night or day to book appointments. The system enables an individual practice to specify and control when slots are available for patients. They can also cancel and review their times, which helps to reduce a surgery’s DNA rate (did not attend). Of the surgeries using an automated system, 96% agreed that it had improved patient choice at their practice, whilst 85% reported that their patients regularly call out of hours to manage their appointments.

One surgery which uses the automated system known as Patient Partner, is the Kingthorne Group Practice in Doncaster. Practice Manager, Alison Maw explains how the service has helped them. “Since using the system, the number of calls coming in to reception has significantly reduced,” comments Alison. “It also has the added benefit of enabling patients to cancel appointments at the weekend so we are aware first thing on Monday morning of any appointments that have become available.”

Whilst there are several different online booking services in use in the UK, Patient Partner is the only fully automated phone system on the market and has been installed at over 600 surgeries nationwide. It was developed five years ago to tackle the problem of patient access by integrated communications specialist Voice Connect (www.voiceconnect.co.uk). The Leicester based company also supplies a range of telecoms products and services to surgeries, sexual health clinics, police forces and private companies across the UK.

“With the Health Bill announced in the Queen’s speech earlier this month (25th May) focusing on reducing inequality in healthcare and cutting bureaucracy, primary health care facilities will be looking for ways to reduce the administrative burden whilst improving services for patients – a tall order,” comments Stefan Olsberg, Managing Director of Voice Connect. “Despite advances in technology, many people still find it difficult to get through to their doctor and make or cancel an appointment, so improving access is fundamental to improving services.”

Missed appointments cost the NHS an estimated £600 million each year, with around 6.5 million appointments missed from 2007 to 2008.

The centre, which has over 7,200 patients on its register, initiated the measures to improve the overall patient experience. “One of the first areas we looked at was communication,” explained Kerry Morley, Practice Manager at Hampton Hill. “Poor communication is a common problem at many practices across the country and is essential to both the smooth running of the surgery and patient satisfaction.”

The practice decided to install an automated booking service known as Patient Partner, developed by integrated communications specialist Voice Connect. The system enables patients to call and book or cancel appointments at anytime, except for a short window of time between 2am and 4am when the service is updated. “Patient Partner has eased call congestion and offers our patients increased flexibility in making appointments which they appreciate,” comments Kerry. “In conjunction with our other innovations, the system has greatly enhanced the service that we offer our patients.”

The practice has also introduced a service known as Vision Online which enables patients to book appointments and manage their healthcare online. In addition, patients are reminded about appointments and are invited to health check and surgery events via SMS text messaging.

“It is gratifying to have all the effort that we have put into improving services for our patients recognised, not just by the patients themselves, but also by the presentation of this award,” comments Kerry.

Missed appointments cost the NHS an estimated £600 million each year, with around 6.5 million appointments missed from 2007 to 2008. “Patient Partner was originally developed to help with the issue of missed appointments and poor communication,” explains Voice Connect’s Managing Director Stefan Olsberg. “So it is pleasing to hear that this, and other advances in technology, can make such a useful contribution to GPs’ surgeries.”