Advanced Cloud Based Telephony (CBT)
A main access point to general practice is the telephone. To support patient journeys and reduce staff burdens, practices have been moving to Cloud Based Telephony (CBT) and the NHS provided funding and support to move all practices to this system before March 2024.
To gain the most benefit from cloud-based telephony, practices using it are advised and encouraged to access support from the general practice improvement programme, as this will help practices make these more holistic changes to workflows. Patient contacts will be consistently managed throughout the whole of the practice or PCN and will support the implementation of modern general practice.
The South East region introduced CBT ahead of many other regions and is now using CBT to explore optimisation of the many features available from current suppliers.
There are several areas to exploit the potential of telephony across the PCNs such as call waiting, call back and nine comparable metrics. These improvements are aimed at decreasing the 8am rush for patients, and reducing some of the overall demand and pressure on practices, particularly where this can be managed by other means, such as connecting data from telephony and online service options, allowing for a directed service that meets patients’ needs. This is a good place to start to review demand and see what can be diverted either by providing information.
Benefits for GP practices
- Cloud Based Telephony helps practices adopt the ‘modern general practice model’, as it provides functionality to support practices to manage calls more effectively. The enhanced reporting capability these systems provide gives better information about how patients are contacting the practice and helps practices understand and manage demand.
- Cloud Based Telephony phone lines are internet based, making it less likely that they will become unavailable due to technical difficulties.
- NHS Staff can access Cloud Based Telephony systems anywhere in the practice, this means GP practices are now more flexible to deal with requests and less reliant on a single reception team.
Benefits for patients
- When patients call the practice, they will come through to an automatic call menu, which will give a range of call options, rather than sending them straight to a call handler. By listening to and using the appropriate option for their call, they will be able to speak to an appropriate member of staff quicker and free up the phoneline for other patient queries that are not covered in the call menu.
- Patients will experience effective call queuing on the phone line when more than 4 patients are waiting. This means they will no longer have their call rejected if the lines are busy, they will instead be placed in a first come first served call queue.
- Advanced-Cloud Based Telephony allow call-back features. This means patients will have the option to request a call back. Using this option will save their place in the phone queue and prompt the reception team to give them a call back when they reach the front of the queue. This is a great option if they have a busy day because they can continue to carry out tasks whilst they wait in the phone queue.
- Cloud Based Telephony has text integration. This means that for certain patient enquiries such as information about clinic dates or routine appointments they may receive a text message rather than speaking to an operator. This can save them from having to wait in phone queues and frees up the call handlers to deal with other enquiries.
- Cloud Based Telephony has automatic priority call handling. This means if patients are calling from the number they have registered with the practice, the smart telephone system will check their medical records and if they have a serious medical condition like heart failure or if they have an access requirement such as being housebound, they will be able to speak to a member of the team sooner.
- Cloud Based Telephony systems can connect to patient records, meaning care navigators can identify whether a patient is registered with the system, meaning there will be fewer checks to verify their identity when they call.
Resources
Practices if they haven’t already done so should visit NHS England » National General Practice Improvement Programme to find out more about the programme and sign up for support, either as an individual practice or as a PCN. This will help ensure that practices can optimise the new functionality to benefit both patients and the practice.