Question: How can we solve appointment scheduling in the health sector

Sarah Chalmers-Page answered on 3 Apr 2023:

We don’t have enough staff or space for all the people who need care. For example, to meet the needs of everyone who wants to see a GP, we would need 4000 more of them. And that is tricky because it takes many years to train medical staff (around 7 to make a GP, 4 for a junior nurse/physiotherapist/occupational therapist, and 12 or so for a hospital consultant) so it is not as easy as just saying “train more people.”

There are things we can try doing. Some places have started to offer more appointments in the evenings and weekends. This works well for some kinds of patients, but we have found that for the most vulnerable patients – for example elderly people – they do not want to come to hospitals late in the evening or on weekends when public transport is less frequent. We also struggle to find enough nurses and doctors who are able to work on the weekend.

We also offer more appointments with different people – for example you might see a healthcare assistant for a routine check up instead of the GP. That helps a lot, and you will only see someone who is qualified to do the job, but we find that some patients feel that they are being treated badly if they do not see a doctor. We need to do a lot more publicity about just how good our other workers are.

We are trying to sort people into the right care on the phone rather than having to see a GP first. For example, if you have a muscle injury, you might be better off talking to a physiotherapist first, not seeing a doctor. This requires people to be open with the GP receptionist, and some people do not like to do that, but we do find that directing people to the right professional saves a lot of appointments and time for the patient.

Remote appointments by phone or video are similar – we would like to do more appointments by phone or videolink. That can work very well for minor and routine care, and it means that face to face appointments can be saved for people who have new or more complex problems, or for people who cannot use the phone.

It would also help if people understood just how good our colleagues in pharmacies are. There are many minor health conditions that are stressful and nasty for the patient, but where the pharmacist can help, rather than waiting to see the GP for something.