Telephone triage has become a valuable tool towards prioritising patient health problems according to their urgency and helping to reassure patients and guide them towards making safe and effective decisions regarding their healthcare.
Telephone triage came to the fore during the pandemic when face-to-face contact between patients and medical staff became limited for health and safety reasons. Telephone triage is a valuable clinical skill, and there are many benefits to telephone triage for patients and healthcare professionals alike.
Most GP surgeries across the UK reported an increase in efficiency since the introduction of a telephone triage system. This system has been proven to reduce the workload on medical staff and has made it easier for patients to receive help and advice without the need to book face-to-face appointments or home visits.
GPs have also benefitted by focusing more time away from non-urgent care and on patients with more complex medical needs. Patients with more urgent needs can gain more immediate access to help without sitting on a long appointment waiting list.
Risks and pitfalls of telephone triage
While telephone triage is a positive system for patients and GPs, many medical staff were moved to operate this way without proper in-depth training during the pandemic.
Telephone triage works well when performed correctly, but one of the most significant risks of the system is delaying or denying proper care and treatment that may require a face-to-face GP appointment.
Some common issues that telephone triage can create include:
- Lack of clinician satisfaction, reducing the desire to perform triage well.
- Lack of engagement with the patient.
- Lack of visual cues from face-to-face examinations causes misdiagnosis.
- Language and communication barriers: The caller is finding it difficult to find the words to describe their symptoms and history of illness. English as a second language makes it difficult to communicate.
- Making incorrect assumptions without checking facts.
- The patient perception that telephone triage reduces their access to appropriate care.
- The patient’s frustration with telephone triage leads to complaints.
- Poor documentation opens up the risk of legal liability.
- Time constraints lead to a lack of appropriate information gathering and timely conclusions.
GP practices can boost the quality of their telephone triage system and reduce the risk of failures by improving their knowledge and skills through appropriate training and education.
The following recommended course from Practitioner Development UK Ltd. will help practice staff guide their callers through a well-defined telephone triage system to get the best outcomes.
AR128 Remote Consultation for Primary Care Practitioners: Online
This two-day online course is aimed at helping community healthcare professionals become familiar with telephone triage practices or to support current system users brush up on their skills for conducting effective virtual consultations via telephone or video.
Participants will be given valuable tools to enable them to deal with patients safely and help carers and other service users via telephone or video consultation whilst managing the inherent risks.
This interactive online workshop runs for 16 hours, held over two days. Through group activities and listening to actual patient calls, participants will learn what, how and when to use the skills, techniques, approaches and strategies discussed.
Workshop participants will be able to:
- Review the general principles in managing a remote consultation and how to create a good rapport with the caller.
- Discuss safe history taking within a telephone or video consultation context.
- Consider consultation protocols and their application to your working area.
- Work through triage situations relevant to your practice area, including minor and major ailments.
- Examine special situations and management in telephone triage and video consultations.
- Identify patient needs, managing them as required safely and efficiently.
- Explore legal issues of virtual consultations, documenting and maintaining records to a professional standard.
