Last week, 65 practice managers, admin staff and GPs met to learn more about the Refocusing GP capacity toolkits, part of Lanarkshire’s Primary Care Action Plan.
The toolkits were developed by the Primary Care Improvement Team (PCIT), in partnership with local GP practices, to ensure they met the needs of practices.
The session covered the three toolkits; Care navigation, Workflow optimisation including read coding and Appointment balance review. Delegates heard about how the toolkits were developed, the benefits of using them and how to access them.
All toolkits are all available on a Sharepoint site dedicated to the work of Lanarkshire’s Primary Care Action Plan.
Team members from Accurx (suppliers of our new digital patient access system) also attended to explain how the system will work with each toolkit, to ensure ease of integration for practices.
The toolkits are available to all GP practices in Lanarkshire to help manage their workload in different ways:
- Care navigation toolkit – resources and training to support practice staff to confidently navigate patients to the most appropriate healthcare professional, which may not always be a GP.
- Workflow optimisation including read coding toolkit – support to help practice staff manage incoming clinical correspondence effectively and directed to the most suitable team member.
- Appointment balance review toolkit – provides evidential data to support staff balance their demand and capacity for appointments.
Dr Mark Russell, Medical Director, South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership said: “I would like to thank everyone who took the time out of their busy day to attend the session to find out more about the toolkits. I hope they will become a useful resource for practices to use regularly to help manage their increasing workloads.
“I would also like to thank everyone who was involved in developing and testing the toolkits. This included local GP practices, colleagues from Public Health Scotland, service leads and representatives from secondary care. This level of investment was proof of just how important contributors felt this work was.”
Additional support is also available to practices to help them get the most out of the toolkits. This includes drop-in sessions and lunchtime QI sessions – details of these and how to contact the PCIT are available on the homepage of the Lanarkshire’s Primary Care Action Plan Sharepoint page.
