Dear Sir
Paul Searle is quite right about Choose and Book (letter 27 october). Being a progressive practice we decided to use it. It has caused considerable problems. The system is slow, when it was demonstrated you could get straight through and the whole procedure of the actual booking was done fairly quickly. In vivo , you can sit there like a lemon with the patient waiting for the system to respond. My average booking time was in excess of five minutes. We tried all methods of getting round this including asking our staff to book the patients later and telephone them. This was wasting much time and causing great problems. The final straw was an elderly patient who attended outpatients with a C and B booking but was sent away because the referral letter could not be accessed from the hospital computer. For the time being our practice has decided to reduce our commitment to choose and book which effectively means junking it for the majority.
Choose and Book is a not a bad idea but it appears that the IT system is not up to scratch. Personally I did not train as a GP to act as an appointments clerk and even an extra 2 minutes per referral is significant if you extrapolate it to all partners over a working week. Despite this some of my partners (once they have removed their anoraks) like to choose and book patients as they feel patients like it. Of course patients would like a free foot massage, coffee and flowers at the surgery but that does not mean it makes good financial sense.
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3 comments:
Interesting. As a layperson, I like the sound of Choose and Book although it reads like the execution wasn't flawless. What intrigues me is that you feel like an appointments clerk. Is the choosing and booking not the ultimate culmination of patient satisfaction? I don't doubt that it takes a long time, but if they could solve that, is this not a great service for you to offer to your patients? I'd love being able to choose which surgeon and when. I hate getting the appointment letter and then spending hours on the phone to get it changed by people who think you're insolent to suggest that the time isn't good for you.
Would you say that your patients are customers? I ask because healthcare is clearly very different to many industries (but then, from my experience, they all say that!)
Thanks clickrich for your comments.A first!!
Choose and Book would be good if it worked.
I agree about the service but in reality you dont necessarily get the choice of surgeon. The times are also somewhat limited.
The appointments clerk point is that as Doctors we are expensive. I dont mind spending time talking to patients about the right consultant (until recently we could write to one by name but this Government buggered that up) but I do object to spending minutes twiddling my thumbs whilst Mrs Jones fiddles with her diary and cant decide whether to cancel her hairdo or not. Im not joking either! This is wasteful to the NHS.
Your Customer point is tricky one -short answer is if I see a patient 20 times a year or not at all I get paid the same, if they were customers this would not be the case.It not like a business, in fact there is no incentive to attract customers to visit us!!
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