Changes to AMGP – March 23

Posted on March 23rd, 2023

Ask my GP system changes

Towards mid 2019, we found the workload that was coming in with requests for clinicians was overwhelming.  The system was broken and after looking at a number of options we chose to move to askmyGP in November 2019.

The pandemic changed the nature of General Practice probably forever, patient demand has built up and slowly but surely our ability to deal with all requests on the same day overwhelmed the system.

The only option has been to turn off the askmyGP system and ask patients if your request was urgent for the same day. If not urgent you were asked to re-contact on another day.  As time went on, the need to close askmyGP earlier became more frequent in order to operate safely, frustrating for you and for us.

For patients who do not use the internet are met with a message from our patient navigators saying we have reached capacity for the day. It is stressful for the patient navigator team as they do not have appointments to offer.

We have a system that is now not working very well for anyone and we intend to fix it with some simple changes.

When you now access askmyGP rather than having an empty text box to type your request in to you will be given with a few options.

If you select “My request is acute and needs to be assessed by a clinician within the next 24 hours” will be triaged by clinical team.

If it is appropriate for acute on the day care it will be assigned to a clinician within the Practice, which could be a doctor, nurse practitioner, urgent care practitioner, paramedic practitioner, first contact practitioner (MSK), clinical pharmacist or paramedic.  You will not be able to select a specific clinician and will be dealt with as either a message, phone call or face to face appointment.

If once triaged, and the clinical team deem the request is not clinically urgent you may receive a response from the team to say that this is being dealt with as a routine request.

Patients who select “My request is routine, I am happy to wait 1-3 working days” will be triaged by the clinical team, and assigned for review in the appropriate timely manner.

You can choose from the following options: ‘fit note (sick note) request, request about a prescription or suspected UTI form this will allow your request to be dealt with in the most efficient manner so please use these options where appropriate.

The system may initially indicate that it is turned off during the hours that askmyGP is available. This is a software development issue, please ignore this, if you are able to see the above icons you can use the system.

If the icons are not available then the system is turned off in which case please contact 111 or 999 if your request is an emergency.

When we introduced askmyGP we moved quickly into the Pandemic and we were unable to follow our usual route of reviewing changes and tweaking the system to reflect this review.

With this change we will monitor, review and make changes as required to ensure we have a system that works as well as possible for you, clinicians and the Practice.

Whilst the perfect system is not out there that doesn’t stop us striving to do the very best we can with the resources we have. We are realistic and know that whatever system we have we probably don’t have the resources available to give all patients exactly what they want but by working together and ensuring that the whole Practice team have a safe workload we believe that together we will provide patients with the care and support they need.

If you have any feedback on these system changes please feel free to let us know at

swlccg.c83013@nhs.net

The entire patient care team at the Practice thank you in advance for your support.