Improving how you contact Mayfield Surgery

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From April 22nd 2024, we’re making changes to improve your experience of contacting and getting what you need from us faster and easier.

This moves us in line with new NHS contract requirements and responds to recent patient feedback in our survey.

Contacting the surgery online for appointments and queries

From April 22^nd 2024, contacting us online is the new way to make appointments or send admin queries. 

We’re encouraging all patients to avoid the telephone queue and fill in our online form to make appointments or to send admin queries. Please do not use this link until the launch date of the 22^nd April.

All clinical online forms go directly to a clinician for review. Our team constantly monitors and responds to online requests throughout the day and aims to respond within 24 hours. Online requests made after 3pm (weekdays) may not be dealt with until the following working day. 

We will use the information you give us, to choose the most suitable clinician or admin team member to help you with the problem you have described.

If you want to order repeat prescriptions, check test results or cancel appointments, you can do this through the online form or the NHS App if you already use it. Read more about the NHS App and your NHS account

Phoning the surgery for appointments and queries

From April 22^nd 2024, there are new options to select from when you call the surgery to guide you quickly and easily to whatever you need. 

For patients with a mobile phone, you can avoid the queue and receive a text message with a link to send us your query through an online form

For patients who do not or cannot go online and need to call the surgery instead, our care navigators can complete the same online form for you over the phone. 

Why we are making these changes

We’re always looking for ways to improve our service to better serve you and our community at Mayfield Surgery. Here are the reasons we are making changes to the way you contact us:

• Many patients told us in our recent patient survey that they need a quicker way to contact the surgery without waiting in a phone queue, so this will enable you to do this online and at a time suitable to you. You can take your time to explain your needs in writing rather than feeling rushed and flustered on a short phone call and share sensitive information with us without having to explain it over the phone to someone unfamiliar. 
• For those patients who use the internet but haven’t contacted us online before, don’t worry. We’ve worked hard to make our website easy to navigate.
• New NHS contract requirements that came out in the summer of 2023 mean GP practices are required to take steps to provide patients with an appropriate response each time they contact the practice and in a timely manner. Nobody likes waiting when they are ill and as health professionals, we don’t either. To make sure that all patients are dealt with fairly and to make sure our team can manage this requirement safely, we have chosen to follow the same process regardless of how, or when you contact us.

By directing all patients to use online services where possible from April 22nd 2024, we can:

• Make sure more patients’ needs are met in a timely manner.
• Free up the telephone lines for those without internet access.
• Improve our overall practice efficiency and meet our NHS contract requirements of providing a safe, responsive service to all our patients including the most vulnerable in our community.

Like anything new, it can take time to feel like normal, and it’s going to be different for our team for a few weeks too as they get used to everything, but we’re confident it’s going to improve things for patients and the Mayfield Surgery team alike.

Published: Mar 25, 2024