In the continuing effort to improve primary care services, NHS England have recently released four new “how to” guides. These guidelines, which are an essential part of the Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care, are designed to give general practice teams the resources they need to better match patient needs with capacity, manage care more effectively, enhance telephone journeys and simplify care-related tasks.
The guides were created to address four key areas:
These new guides provide practical insights into how to manage the day to day operations within general practice and PCNs. By aligning capacity and need, practices can reduce wait time and improve the delivery of their services, which ensures patients receive faster and more appropriate care.
By improving care navigation, practices can help patients connect with the relevant services without unnecessary delays. The guide describes how to guide patients smoothly through the healthcare system to receive the correct care.
With a focus on telephony systems, this guide seeks to improve the first point of contact many patients have with healthcare services. It offers insights into managing call flows, reducing wait times and improving patient satisfaction and access.
This guide offers suggestions for managing a range of healthcare procedures, including scheduled follow up visits and managing prescriptions. The objective is to improve patient outcomes and reduce any barriers by increasing the efficiency of care delivery.
Complementing and Expanding Existing Resources
These guides build on the existing NHS framework, such as the previously released ‘creating highly usable and accessible GP website for patients’ guide. They not only offer new insights and strategies but also encourage practices and primary care networks to use these recommendations and tailor them for themselves.
Leveraging knowledge and benefits
The development of these guides has been a collaborative effort, drawing on the experiences and successes of practices and PCNs across the country. The tested and proven systems and approaches have already shown promising transformation. One of the key advantages of these guides is their potential to help practices and PCNs quickly and easily receive the benefits of modernised methods and improved patient care.
Conclusion
The introduction of these ‘how to’ guides by NHS England is an exciting step towards enhancing the quality and efficiency of general practice. As healthcare grows, so must the systems and processes that are used to support it. These guides are good useful resources for any general practice who are aiming to improve their service delivery and connect with patients.
For us at Hanley Consulting these guides are an opportunity to continue to push and see what technology can do in the support of general practice.
