GPs shocked by abuse receptionists deal with as they trial new triage system for Stansted and Elsenham surgeries

A new triage system trialled by the Stansted and Elsenham doctors’ surgeries proved an “eye-opener” for staff.

Teresa Buglass, practice manager of the newly-merged village practices, now known as Peacock Surgery, said that the trial run saw a doctor sitting with the reception teams at both branches to assess incoming calls – and partners were shocked by what they heard.

“For our receptionists, it was a chance for a bit of learning, but for our partners to be there and hear the abuse thrown at the girls was quite an eye-opener,” she said.

The idea of the five-day trial, which ran from Monday to Friday, November 25-29, was to triage patients at the initial point of contact and help reduce the workload on doctors, who were currently “managing double the amount of patients deemed safe by the British Medical Association”, Ms Buglass added. “And that’s a conservative estimate.”

Partners then met on Saturday, along with their reception teams, to discuss the way forward.

“It [the trial] went very well and we will be pursuing with a version of it, but it will take a while to implement,” said Ms Buglass.

“It made a noticeable impact for the receptionists and for the doctors.

“It’s just about signposting people, as not everything is for the doctor, and our receptionists have no clinical training so it’s not their judgement to make, and they were quite happy to have a doctor there with them at the point of contact.

“It will probably be a couple of weeks before we implement all the changes because there’s quite a bit of work to get it set up properly, to come up with all the rotas, but we will communicate when it’s ready to the patients.”

On its website, the practice said it was trialling the new triage system to “unify how we work over both sites”.

“In addition, our clinical team is struggling to meet our daily demand. Our reception team are not clinically trained so are not in a position to judge urgent medical needs versus matters that can wait a little.

“On a daily basis, our duty doctors are managing double the amount of patients deemed safe by the British Medical Association.

“Having a GP ‘on shift’ with the reception team will mean we triage more effectively.”