Triage and care navigation

Triage and care navigation helps us to decide on the best course of action to help meet your health needs

It helps us to ensure that we can prioritise care for you when you most need it and make best use of all of the options that are available.

• This means that when you call us or pop into our reception to ask for help, our reception team are likely to ask you a few questions about your health complaint so that we can build a better understanding of your needs. 
• For some appointment requests our reception team will also consult with one of our doctors who is doing triage – this doctor is called our Triage Coordinator.
• Our Triage Coordinator doctor will consider the information you have shared with our reception team and may look at your clinical records to understand any relevant historical health issues you might have.   
• Our reception team will then work with advice and support from our triage doctor to help decide the best course of action to help meet your needs. 
• Sometimes we will recommend that a course of self-care (that is care that you can organise for yourself at home) and other times we may signpost you to a local pharmacy or other service like the urgent treatment centre.    
• Sometimes we might book you an appointment with a doctor, nurse, paramedic or other member of our healthcare team. 
• We will always try to match you with the best care option to meet your needs.   
• As we develop our triage and care navigation services we would be grateful if you could please be patient with members of our reception team and provide them with information when they ask. 
• hey are working hard for you and our triage and care navigation arrangements will help us to be there for you when you need us.

What are the benefits of triage and care navigation?

• To help match the right care response to meet your individual needs
• To improve access to the right care more quickly and avoid delays
• To free up GP time to focus on people with more complex needs
• To maximise the team and clinical skills we have available
• To make sure we are here for you when you need us most

We have had triage and care navigation arrangements in place for our St Marys and Telephone House surgery sites now for about 2 years and feel that this part of our service really helps us to find the right course of advice or treatment for patients and also makes best use of our clinician’s time. From October 2024 we will be starting with triage and care navigation arrangements for patients who use our Mulberry House surgery too. This means that patients who usually use Mulberry Surgery may notice some changes when they ring or come in to book an appointment. Please bear with us as we put these changes in place. We a confident that in the longer term they will help us to deliver better services.