What is the condition of the service on offer now?
Before embarking on any change, one of the most important questions to be asking is what is the condition of the service on offer now?
The operational reality of Primary Care is that it is demanding and stressful, so it is important to unpick this and to remove as much of the emotion from the decision making as possible.
Undertaking a health check of your general practice can help you to prioritise areas of development and identify clear steps to reaching these goals.
To create sustained progress on the set of practices that will drive organisational health, it is important to identify and address the culture that influences employee behaviour and then define new ones to replace them.
Health check
Is there an effective digital response in place?
Do patients understand the digital offer?
Are patients adopting digital service solutions?
Are practices seeing the benefit of digital?
Is digital access and uptake being measured?
Is there a multi-channel access offer that encourages patients to select non-urgent routes and self-help for minor ailments?
Understand the success of patient communication operations
What communication channels are in use?
What is the demand through each of the channels?
When does demand occur?
What sort of things do the channels get used for?
Is this what the practice wants to happen?
How much resource goes into each channel?
Tips to challenge front of house methodologies
Is navigating or signposting taking place?
What are the skills and experience variations between staff?
How consistent is the patient communications offer?
Is there a history of ‘forcing’ patients down a particular communications route?
If so, how effective was this?
What do patients say about the experience?
Is the operation gravitating towards easier, traditional routes, such as the telephone?
Are the team confident about the cross-communication-channel opportunities?
