Improving communication for patients

Posted on July 4th, 2022

Telecoms 

Last year we informed patients that we would be installing a new telephone system to improve the access patients had to the practice.  It would also allow us to analyze our calls.  This went live in November 2021 and we now have 6m worth of data to analyze.  The data shows that the average waiting time before a member of staff answers, ranges from 100- 160 seconds. That is where 60 seconds of this is the opening message.  Hence on average, calls are answered between 40-100s.  Obviously this is an average and times can be longer and shorted depending on how busy the day is.  But we are proud of this improvement and aim to get this waiting time even lower.

We also analyzed the number of dropped calls per day over the previous 6 months.  That is, the number of patients that ended the call prematurely.  These range between  47-97 per week.  Although we endeavor to get this down even further, we think this is a good performance indicator for our staff. We must emphasize, that at certain times of the day, the lines will be busier.  This is unavoidable due to the nature of General Practice.  There may also be certain days where due to staff absences, we have less staff available to answer calls.

We hope the above information reassures patients that the measures we have taken, improves the service we provide.  Of course, we will endeavor to keep improving.