St Serf’s Medical Practice E-Triage Request

Every day, GP practices receive hundreds of requests for help or advice. For each request, the practice needs to consider:

• Why someone has sought help from their GP
• What kind of help is needed
• How quickly the help is needed
• The best person to help
• Where and when the help should be provided

The answers to these questions help to sort requests based on clinical need. This process is called Triage. 

When we feel unwell we often want reassurance and advice about our symptoms, but might not know exactly what is wrong with us or how to treat it. Not every request can be dealt with by a GP practice, not every condition is right to be seen at A&E, and Dr Google (or the internet) is often misleading. Medical professionals spend years training and are experts when it comes to making sure patients get the right care.

Regardless of whether you look online first, there are times when you need help from a medical professional, such as a doctor, pharmacist, dentist or optician.

When you decide which healthcare service you think you need, you explain why you are there and are asked about your symptoms. You are then given care or you may be directed to a different healthcare professional who is best placed to help you.

With large numbers of patients to look after (some GP practices have over 40,000 registered patients), it is essential to triage and direct each patient to the right type of care. It might seem convenient to book an appointment with a GP, but if a GP appointment is not the right care for you it is not a good use of time for either you or the Doctor.  You may be advised to contact another clinical professional such as a dentist or optician depending on the symptoms you are experiencing.

E-Triage allows patients to submit a request electronically, often before the practice telephone lines open and before patients start work, meaning there is no need to wait in a phone queue. The request provides information that allows us to triage each patient to the correct healthcare professional.

E-Triage has ‘red-flagging’ built-in so if you answer questions that suggest your condition is more critical than can be seen by a GP, you will be stopped and advised to seek more critical care.

It is important to note that E-Triage requests are for non-urgent routine matters only.

There will always be patients who can’t or would prefer not to use online options so submitting an E-Triage request is not the only way to contact us.

However, if more patients go online to contact us it means more traditional methods such as telephone requests will be reserved for patients who don’t have online access, and will also reduce the telephone waiting times.