Positivity in general practice may seem like a big ask at the moment. With growing financial and time pressure, is there any way to lighten the load?

We’ve collated some ideas from forum members, who have implemented new ideas that have made a difference in their practices.

Reception base

One manager spoke about locating their duty doctor in the reception team’s area for the first couple of hours of the day so that the GP would be on hand to talk to patients on the phone or give advice to the receptionist about a patient’s call.

This approach has helped to ease the demand for appointments as the doctor is able to prescribe immediately or take other actions to remove the need for an appointment.

Snapshots

A manager based in West Sussex has found that giving printed “snapshot” documents about locally commissioned services (LCSs) to GPs has helped to raise awareness amongst the team and made their job easier.

Kristina Svobodova, Deputy Practice Manager at a Worthing practice, which looks after 15,500 patients, had this idea:

“It’s fairly simple. It started when we signed up to some new LCSs. When there’s something new, some of the GPs aren’t always so good with the clinical system and finding their way around it, so what I’ve done is to create a one, two or three-page document per service, depending on the kind of work we have to do.”

The printed documents:

• Describe the aim of the service
• Explain why the practice is doing it
• Detail what needs to be done in order to achieve the service
• Signpost clinicians to the necessary templates
• Detail what information to look for
• Explain how much the practice is getting paid for the procedure or intervention

“It’s got bullet points so the GPs can have a quick read and they know what they have to do in order to achieve this, and then it gives them the tools they need,” she explains.

“I realised that with LCSs, sometimes they are 15 pages long and what you need is just one or two pages on what is most important. Rather than putting it on the clinical system, the doctors work best with a printed copy, so that’s what I did. It’s pretty much a summary or boiled-down version to make it understandable without having to read every sentence of the main document.”

The snapshot documents were introduced more than a year ago and Kristina says: “Sometimes doctors specialise in different areas, so it’s an overview of what we do and who does what. It was also created to give them an idea, financially, of what comes with that work. I wanted the clinicians to have an awareness that if we’re going to claim money, we also need to make sure we satisfy the auditable data as well.”

The idea has had a positive impact, as Kristina explains: “It has given them more awareness and the necessary tools because they now know which clinical templates to use to do something. They’ve got the information there ready at hand and they know that if they’ve got a patient who needs a specific interaction or who falls under a specific commissioned service, they can just have a quick look to make sure they don’t miss anything. It makes their job easier and makes sure we’re doing what we should and that we’re getting paid as much as we can.”

Other ideas

There are other good ideas out there such as Deep End GP practices – a scheme that began in Scotland involving practices that serve the 100 most socio-economically deprived populations in the country.

One of the ways they do this is by having advisors in the practice to give assistance with social issues such as housing and debt, and helping people to register with a practice even though they may not have proof of address or photographic ID.

Some practices also set aside protected time to enable teams to meet up and work on quality improvement, particularly focusing on areas such as prescribing, access, chronic disease management and collaborations.

Time to think

Nicola Davies, Chair of the Institute for General Practice Management, believes there are many more good ideas out there ready to be shared.

At her surgeries in Cornwall, the team has done well with their flu and COVID-19 clinics thanks to a new way of supporting the vaccinators.

Nicola says, “We created a pro forma template of all the important questions to ask patients pre-vaccination, with a small table for flu/Covid vaccination, left or right arm, etc. One of our receptionists asks the questions, directed to an available vaccinator, and all they have to do is tick the relevant box so admin can put the info into the computer system. This has meant there are no hold-ups and patients arrive in a steady stream with no delays. It’s seamless!”

It would seem that despite the intense working environment in primary care just now, there are some good ideas and new approaches out there that are making life easier for managers and practices. Why not share your ideas in the forum?