Online consulting is evolving

Over the last 2 years, we have been looking at how to improve the ways you can get in touch with us and many of you have been using our online form since its launch last summer. Online consulting has been a useful alternative to calling or visiting the surgery when you want non-urgent medical advice and has been a real success since its launch. We will be evolving this service in the near future by using a dedicated online consulting system called ‘accuRx Triage’.

Why accuRx Triage?

accuRx Triage will work in a similar way to our current online form. It looks a little different, but is just as easy to complete (see a sample here). It has some really important advantages over our current system:

1. Photo attachment option

Photos can be useful for things like skin rashes, your blood pressure, asthma diaries and more. Many of you contact the surgery already to provide photo(s), and accuRx Triage allows you to send these with your initial query, which will save you time and allow us to answer your question more efficiently. These photos can be saved into your record at the click of a button without being stored in any other location. You can also send scanned pictures, like a blood pressure chart or a clinic letter you have received.

2. Confirmation text

We understand that it can be a little unnerving not knowing if your form was submitted correctly or not. accuRx Triage will give you the option of receiving a confirmation text for peace of mind.

3. It works seamlessly with your medical records

It means that your query will save automatically to your notes. This means that your clinical record will always be complete and it helps us enormously and will allow us to have more time for what’s important to you and your health.

When can I use AccuRx Triage?

It’s perfect for administrative queries or non-urgent medical issues. While you should not use it for medical emergencies, you can use it to ask for medical advice from a doctor. Depending on the nature of your problem, you may be offered a face-to-face or telephone appointment, or a response by text or email. You can let us know on the form which you think would be most helpful.

You can submit the form on behalf of someone else; please fill the form in with the patient’s details and let us know your relationship to them (e.g. partner, carer, parent, son/daughter etc).

Forms submitted before 2pm will be read the same day, but forms submitted after 2pm (or on a day when the practice is closed) will not usually be read until the next working day. Please call the surgery (or 111 out-of-hours) if you have a more pressing query, or even call 999 if it’s an emergency (click here to find out when to call 999).

What happens after I submit the form?

Once you submit your form, we will either:

- Let you know the appointment date and time by text with an option to text back if there is a problem.

OR

- Pass this on to the doctor, nurse or admin team who will get in touch with you.

Can I still contact you by email?

When we launch accuRx Triage, we will be discontinuing the binscombe.info@nhs.net email. Any emails sent to this address will receive an out of office reply redirecting them to the new accuRx triage system. We recognise that this will be a disappointment for those patients who have found this a very convenient way of getting in touch, but it will not be possible to run both systems together and the way the new system integrates with the patient record makes it very much better. Within the accuRx system we will still be able to send you an email; this will usually be a ‘no-reply’ email, but there is the option to allow a one-time reply which again will be easy to save into your record.

Tell us your thoughts

We regularly review the best way we can provide care for you and your family, so it is very important to know if any changes we make are working well or if there is room for improvement. If you have any feedback for us, please don’t hesitate to let us know – you can even get in touch via the new accuRx system!

Finally, the timescale for the change will be in the early autumn and we will put a post on our website once the system is live.