Service Delivery & Communication

▪ Where access to a service is clinically appropriate and patients require access to GMS services, they will be offered an appropriate consultation, whether urgently or through advanced booking consistent with the patient’s assessed clinical need, without the need for the patients to contact the practice again.

▪ All patients telephoning the practice have their calls received by a standard recorded message, and subsequently calls are answered and care navigation undertaken. Where clinically appropriate, patients may be signposted to another appropriate service.

▪ Available appointments must be a mix of remote, face to face, urgent, on the day and pre-bookable to reflect the blended model of access, as determined by the practice in discussion with the patient. A more planned and forward looking approach should be taken to the scheduling of appointments throughout the day, or for future dates, meaning it is no longer acceptable for all appointments to be released at 8am for that day.

Patient Engagement

▪ Practices will be required to take a more open and transparent approach, through an automated and standardised public facing dashboard, to the sharing of information and reporting, at a practice level, on GMS activity.

▪ All practices have a clear understanding of patient needs and demands within their practices and how these can be met.

Digital

▪ All practices must provide a telephony service (preferably Voice over Internet Protocol solutions or sufficient incoming and outgoing lines) that fully meets the needs of patients.

▪ The digital platform is for non-urgent access and only to be used during core hours.