Beaconsfield Road Surgery is a practice with 4 GPs serving 10,400 patients. Based over two sites, the practice had a busy reception team that was often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of inbound calls prior to the current partnership with CallCare Health.

With pressures on Primary Care worsening and demand increasing rapidly, the Reception team at Beaconsfield Road Surgery struggled to cope. Patients became frustrated, and even abusive, with increasing wait times and the number of abandoned calls had become excessive. This was exacerbating pressures on the practice as a whole, straining the relationship with the patient base and creating difficult working conditions for both clinical and non-clinical staff alike.

Drawing on almost 25 years of experience working with the NHS and Public Health England, CallCare Health created a specialised and bespoke outsourcing solution devised specifically for GP Reception Services. Our ability to integrate with clinical systems such as EMIS, SystmOne and
VISION allows us to take full control of the Reception Service, unburdening the practice of ringing phones and the stress of managing a now untenable situation. CallCare Health immediately began to improve the call stats on this line, reducing the average wait time by 34%. CallCare Health also
reduced the abandonment rate by 70%, meaning that far fewer patients needed to make repeated calls in order to speak to a Receptionist.

Improving those two metrics helped to reduce the average talk time, with fewer patients expressing frustration or complaining. The overall improvement led to greater efficiency, with fewer staff now needed to manage the overall workload.

With the partnership between Beaconsfield Road Surgery and CallCare Health delivering excellent results for both the practice and the patients, Beaconsfield Road Surgery developed the service further and outsourced more complex queries, involving, for example, medication, or results information. The team at CallCare Health now manages simple medication queries relating to drug administration, in addition to advising patients, of their reported tests, including urine, blood tests, CT scans, and any other duties as needed. Further development is planned for the future, with the practice’s routine appointment booking line likely to move to CallCare Health. It is anticipated that the team will manage bookings for all routine issues, including but not limited to smears, blood pressure readings, all chronic disease reviews, and arrange appointments for dressing changes for patients with cuts and wounds.

The partnership continues to grow and it is expected that CallCare Health will deliver a strong performance across all metrics on behalf of the practice and its patients. Beaconsfield Road Surgery initially tasked CallCare Health with managing their same-day appointments line, a particularly busy line that involves handling an influx of calls in the morning before navigating disappointment and frustration amongst patients who weren’t able to book an appointment.