Introduction and Welcome
TWW welcomed everyone to the meeting and refreshments were served.

Apologies:
Were received from 2 patients

TWW updated the group with regards to the triage which is a digital way of accessing the practice and that all appointments requested on a Wednesday non urgent will be triaged as to when an appointment is needed, and that this is a national initiative that had to be implemented by the beginning of October.

It was discussed that the system will be open from 8am – 12pm and can be capped if demand is too great, TWW explained that she had trialled this prior to going live in October.

TWW mentioned that we were receiving good feedback and that we would be looking at exploring the possibility of extending this to another day in the new year. TWW mentioned that there were differences between practices as they all have their own individual working practices, and that some practices had decided to go full triage. TWW also mentioned that patients can still ring the practice and a receptionist will complete the form for them, one of the group members felt that she wasn’t even going to use any online services but appreciated it is a personal choice of hers and would choose to still telephone if needed which is perfectly acceptable.

We discussed as regards to problems with blood results.
TWW advised that the turnaround at the labs had not been quick enough and that this had caused samples having to be repeated, so this caused duplication and great demand.

However, it is looking like things are improving as the ICB had been involved with the lab and the monitoring and that they had implemented a smarter system.

The meeting lasted for approximately 1 hour.

It was agreed that TWW would send the meeting dates and times after the new year.

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