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[av_heading heading=’How telephone triage is helping both workforce and patients during the Coronavirus pandemic’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=’40’ subheading_active=” subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=’custom-color-heading’ custom_font=’#ffffff’ admin_preview_bg=”][/av_heading]
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Here at the GP Federation, like thousands of GP Practices up and down the land, we were quick to develop telephone triage and video assessment facilities as part of our Covid-19 resilience hub. In this blog, our Quality Clinical Lead, Dr Saveena Ghaie, talks about how telephone triage is helping both workforce and patients in Bolton during the coronavirus pandemic.
Over the past couple of months, there have been lots of quick changes to the way general practice runs, such as the use of telephone and video to assess patients.
Telephone triage has long been used by the medical profession to effectively direct patients to the most appropriate service. In recent years, with the introduction of the additional workforce of pharmacists, mental health and musculoskeletal practitioners within general practice, its use has become more widespread. But still, not all practices had been using it – until now.
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced all practices to use telephone triage. Doing this has allowed them to protect their patients and their workforce and, as patients can be screened for symptoms and then managed effectively without increasing exposure to others, it has been absolutely critical in reducing the spread of the virus. Many patients can in fact be managed entirely by telephone and the need for a face-to-face consultation is not required.
The move to a telephone triage system has been welcomed by many. For patients there are many benefits. It means no unnecessary travel to the surgery and they can be assessed and their clinical problem be managed more quickly than it would by a traditional appointment. For clinicians, it means a more effective use of available time and resources and the ability to deal with more patients.
Telephone triage is not without its disadvantages, however. Even using the advancing video technology, without the ability to examine the patient in front of them, clinicians have to deal with a degree of medical uncertainty and in some cases, there will still be a need to see some patients face-to-face. In addition, both clinicians and patients are concerned that this remote way of working may degrade the doctor patient relationship.
But whilst Covid-19 remains a threat, telephone triage is here to stay. And whilst all of Bolton’s practices are now set up in this way, it will very likely become more the norm, even beyond this pandemic.
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Dr Saveena Ghaie
Interim Director
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