Below will detail the appointment process for the practice and different avenues available to patients to get the fastest and most effective treatment available.

 

Triage Service

Clinical triage is a clinical process conducted by a clinician, most often a nurse or GP, to make early clinical decisions and signpost appropriately either within the practice or elsewhere. Care navigation is a process done by care coordinators, appropriately trained reception or other practice staff, to signpost to the most appropriate clinician or elsewhere outside of the practice. Both may be referred to as triage systems.

Care navigation and clinical triage allow practices to prioritise patients with the most urgent health needs, ensure they see the most appropriate clinician or are signposted to alternative services.

Every day, GP practices receive requests for help or advice through patients calling in, walking in, and now also online via online consultations. For each patient request, the practice needs to work out:

• Why they have sought help from their GP
• What kind of help the patient needs
• How quickly the patient needs help
• Who is the best person to help this patient
• Where and when the patient should be seen

The answers to these questions help the practice to sort patients based on their needs. This process is called Triage. Triaging is essential when you may be dealing with hundreds of patients a day, all with different needs, requests and health backgrounds.

It might seem convenient to book an appointment with a GP for when you have time, but if an appointment is not the right care for you, then it is not a good use of your or the doctor’s time.

 

 

E-Consultations

eConsult is a clever bit of software that allows you to quickly and safely get help and advice from your own doctors and GP practice online, for free, from anywhere.

eConsult is a form-based online consultation & triage platform that collects your medical or administrative request and sends it through to your GP practice to triage and decide on the right care for you and everyone else.

Feel unwell, or have a request for the practice? Choose the relevant section for your need or request. Fill out the information requested and submit your eConsult. Questions may change depending on what you input. Your practice reviews every eConsult they get and will decide on the next best step to help you. This means you may not need to visit the practice for an appointment.

Our Operating Hours for E-Consultation is Monday – Friday (8am – 6:30pm)

 

K&W HUB – Enhanced Access Appointments

Each Practice is allocated a limited number of appointments with the HUB service. There are GP, Nurse and Phlebotomy community services available to reduce the pressure on the GP practice and ensure the fastest and most effective treatment is available to patients.

Enhance Access Appointments

Click the link above to know a bit more about GP HUB Enhanced Access Appointments

 

 

E-HUB

The E-HUB is an additional service to reduce pressure on the GP services. The GP surgery refers the patient through an internal system, there is an allocated number of appointments available each day for . The referral is then triaged by the E-HUB team. They have GP’s and Pharmacist working with them. Patients will get an outcome from this team which may be a call or face to face appointment as necessary.

e-Hub triage

Click the link above to learn more about E-HUB

Minor Ailments List

Click the link above to know what appointments are suitable to be booked with E-HUB

 

CPCS (NHS Community Pharmacy Consultation Service)

 

 

NHS Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (Minor Illness and Urgent Repeat Medicines Supply pathways) The NHS Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS) is a national Advanced Service to refer patients requiring low acuity advice, treatment and urgent repeat prescriptions to community pharmacies.

The service aims to reduce pressure on the primary and urgent care system, particularly Accident and Emergency and GP out of hours. The service will support the integration of community pharmacy into the urgent care system.

The service connects patients who have a minor illness or need an urgent supply of a medicine with a community pharmacy.

The CPCS aims to relieve pressure on the wider NHS by connecting patients with community pharmacy, which should be their first port of call and can deliver a swift, convenient and effective service to meet their needs. Since the CPCS was launched, an average of 10,500 patients per week being referred for a consultation with a pharmacist following a call to NHS 111; these are patients who might otherwise have gone to see a GP

General practices can refer patients for a minor illness consultation via CPCS, once a local referral pathway has been agreed. As well as referrals from general practices, the service takes referrals to community pharmacy for minor illness or if a patient needs an urgent supply of a medicine from NHS 111 and NHS 111 online, Integrated Urgent Care Clinical Assessment Services and in some cases patients referred via the 999 service.

The CPCS provides the opportunity for community pharmacy to play a bigger role than ever within the urgent care system.

NHS CPCS

GP referral pathway to CPCS

Click on the links above for more information on CPCS Service

 

Pharmacy First

 

From 31st January 2024 (subject to the required IT systems being in place), the service will be subsumed into the new Pharmacy First service (Advanced service). Read more about this:

Pharmacy First Overview

Pharmacy First Specification

Click on the links above to learn more about Pharmacy First

 

GP Appointments

Every contact with the practice should lead to an outcome for the patient, and no longer can we ask patients to try again another day.

• This could be an answer to a query
• This could be signposting to another service, and the government insists we increasingly direct patients elsewhere to a more appropriate service
• This could be an assessment of need to determine if an appointment is appropriate

 

• Our available appointments will be given to those patients who most need them.
• Problems less appropriate for a GP appointment will no longer end up with a GP.
• Access to appointments for appropriate conditions will increase.
• No longer will patients need to phone at 8 am to request an appointment.

 

• When a patient contacts the surgery, the receptionist will ask for a description of the problem
• Patients will signposted to the most appropriate service to help the patient with that problem (First contact physio, pharmacist, dentist, other services, GP)
• An appointment with a nurse or healthcare assistant will be booked where this is the required action
• Admin/Reception no longer can book an appointment with a GP directly (unless directed to do so by a GP, Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) – Via Triage System
• Online bookable appointments will cease to exist as these can’t be triaged
• Where signposting to a GP, ANP is appropriate, the receptionist will pass this to a triage clinician for an assessment of need based on the details the patient has provided
• A clinician can only assess the need for an appointment if the patient provides details of their problem (our receptionists are bound by the same rules of confidentiality as all others in the practice)
• After triage, the practice will contact the patient to give them the outcome of the triage (which could be signposting to another service, advice, a prescription, a fit note, an appointment with a GP, ANP which maybe same-day or within 2 weeks, or any other action
• The contact to pass on the outcome could be by telephone or text. It is therefore very important we have your correct contact details

 

Doctor

GP Doctors are to see patients with more complex healthcare needs, multiple chronic conditions, many medications, multiple providers, frequent hospitalizations, and limitations of own abilities.

 

Nurse – ANP

What is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP)? Advanced Nursing Practitioners (ANP) are nurses who have undertaken a master’s level in clinical practice. ANPs have authority in patient diagnosis and are trusted to independently assess, diagnose, manage and care for patients with complex clinical issues.

The role of a ANP differs greatly in comparison to a general nurse, meaning they will be expected to perform more duties, as they are in a more senior position. Responsibilities of an Advanced Nurse Practitioner can include:

• Diagnosing health conditions
• Conducting check-ups
• Researching patient conditions
• Referring patients to specialists
• Maintaining records of patient medical history
• Prescribing and administering medication

 

 

Clinical Pharmacist

Clinical pharmacists work as part of the general practice team or as part of a PCN (Primary Care Network – For more information on PCN go to home page, under about us tab select staff then select Primary Care Network (PCN) Staff ).

Clinical Pharmacist to improve value and outcomes from medicines and consult with and treat patients directly. This includes providing extra help to manage long-term conditions, advice for those on multiple medicines and better access to health checks.

Clinical Pharmacist Leaflet

Click the link to see a bit more about Clinical Pharmacist

 

Prescribing Pharmacist

Pharmacist independent prescribers will facilitate quicker and more convenient access to safe and high-quality healthcare, including the prescription of appropriate medicines for minor illness, addressing health issues before they get worse, providing monitoring of long-term health conditions and preventing ill-health.

 

 

HCA

As part of the wider team in general practice, General Practice Assistants provide a support role, carrying out administrative tasks, combined in some areas with basic clinical duties. They can help to free up GPs time and contribute to the smooth running of appointments, improving patients experience in the surgery.

 

Phlebotomist

A phlebotomist is a medical professional who is trained to perform blood draws on Patients (Take Blood Samples). They collect and prepare blood for testing so it can be analyzed in a medical laboratory.

On our team we also have a specialist pediatric phlebotomist working with us which reduces the waiting time for these patients as we do not need to refer to hospitals or specialist teams for blood samples to be taken.

 

PCN First Contact Physiotherapist (FCP’s)

FCPs are physiotherapists with expertise in the assessment and management of Musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions.

First Contact Physio Explained

Click the Link Above to learn more

For more information on PCN go to home page, under about us tab select staff then select Primary Care Network (PCN) Staff ).

 

PCN Social Prescriber

Social Prescribing is a way of referring people to different support services in the community in order to improve their health and wellbeing.

Brent Social Prescriber Leaflet

Click the Link Above to learn more

For more information on PCN go to home page, under about us tab select staff then select Primary Care Network (PCN) Staff ).

 

PCN Health & Wellbeing Coach

Health & Wellbeing Coaches are a new service to help patients in regards to their general well-being to encourage and advise, see the video for more details:

Health and Wellbeing Coach Role

Click the Link Above to learn more

For more information on PCN go to home page, under about us tab select staff then select Primary Care Network (PCN) Staff ).

 

NHS 111 Service

NHS 111 helps people get the right advice and treatment when they urgently need it. Clinicians, such as nurses, doctors, pharmacists and paramedics now play an important role in NHS 111.

 

A&E

A&E services are departments in hospitals which provides services primarily for the reception, assessment, examination and treatment of patients who have been involved in an accident, or have sustained an injury or who have an acute surgical or medical emergency which may require hospital facilities.

 

Hospital Appointments & Referrals

In England, the NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) is a national digital platform used to refer patients from primary care into elective care services. e-RS allows patients to choose their first outpatient hospital or clinic appointment and book it in the GP surgery, online or on the phone.

 

 

Home Visit

 

Home visits are at the discretion of the GP who will determine if the visit is clinically necessary. Visits are reserved for patients who are genuinely housebound, including those in nursing and residential homes, and terminally ill patients.

You should tell your GP surgery if you change your address. If you do not tell your GP that you’ve moved there’s a risk that: NHS letters giving appointment dates or test results go to the wrong address.

Your GP surgery may not be able to provide home visits or other services if you move outside their area putting limitations on your care however you may still remain registered with the GP surgery if you decide to move home.

For patients with severe and complex issues it is recommended if you move location to register to a GP Surgery close to your new home.

 

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