The practice is continuing to experience an increase in the number of calls it receives between 8am and 9am. This is leading to our patients waiting on hold much longer in order to speak to a patient advisor. The average wait time is 12 minutes, but on extremely busy mornings, it can be as much as 28 mins in some cases. Consequently the practice will now only be accepting calls between 8am and 9am if they relate to making an appointment with a GP or Advanced Nurse practitioner (ANP). For anything else we would ask patients to call after 9am when the average wait time is 3 minutes.
Please find below a summary of our updated call times:
8am to 9am: Calls for appointments with a GP or ANP.
9am onwards: Calls for appointments with a GP/ANP, appointments with the Practice Nurse Team or Healthcare Support Worker, blood tests, prescription enquiries, test results, or any other business.
This update is the first phase in a number of changes that the practice will be making over the next few weeks to shorten call queue times, and provide greater access to appointments. More detail will be provided to patients when the next phase of the plan is ready to be implemented.