Designed just for primary care, babblevoice cloud-based telephony includes tailor-made features to support surgeries maximise and manage patient access during the flu season.

Read our short checklist for GP surgeries to help support your ICS-wide planning for the flu season this year.

ICS-wide access benefits

With ICS leaders in the midst of winter pressures management, the challenges to primary care from this year’s flu season will be front-of-mind. The combined impact of another round of both flu and COVID-19 vaccinations, together with a likely increase in ill-health from cost of living and fuel crises, place the focus of planning firmly on maximising and managing patient access to primary care.

NHS England’s recent communication to primary care leaders drew attention to realising the advantages offered by cloud-based telephony in supporting increased access to GP surgeries. As a hosted telephony system designed just for primary care, babblevoice also includes functionality that is specifically devised to help support surgeries with the challenges associated with mass population clinics.

In order to support an ICS-wide review of planning for the flu season across primary care settings, we’ve put together a short summary about how surgeries can seek to maximise the benefits from their babblevoice system during the flu season this year.

Utilise easy-to-change call options

It’s quick and simple to change and re-record the options patients hear when they call the surgery. This means staff can swiftly respond to external changes out of their control. For example, if NHS England run a national campaign at short notice encouraging over-50’s to get a flu jab, babblevoice can help surgeries speedily react on the day the letters land on doormats and emails are delivered to in-boxes.

Whatever the preference to manage vaccine enquiries, such as diverting to a dedicated line, directing people to online booking, or a request they leave a message, babblevoice can be set up to fit in with the best way of working for a particular surgery and their community.

Take advantage of seamless integration with EMIS and SystmOne

Babblevoice has been built to integrate directly with EMIS and SystmOne. If a surgery uses these systems to create vaccine ‘sessions’, then patients can use their handset to book themselves into a session. This helps to free up reception staff to speak to patients such as the elderly that need the reassurance of a conversation. The vaccine ‘session’ bookings can also be accessed by the reception team during a call.

Activate patient-led automation

Babblevoice provides a range of functionality that can be enacted by patients using their handset during a call to the surgery. Ensuring that as much of this is activated as possible can be critical when call volumes peak.

For example, patients can use their handset to reschedule or cancel appointments. They can also request additional reminders. Removing these administrative calls provides more time for the reception team to deal with patients who are unwell and need clinical interventions.

Automation can also be used during the running of a vaccination clinic. Patients can call the surgery to register as present, and babblevoice will inform the GP administering the vaccine that they are waiting.

Set up automated reminders

Babblevoice can be programmed to automatically call patients from a list with a reminder of their vaccination appointment, including time, date and location. Timely reminders are a way of helping to reduce ‘did not attend’ volumes.

This year, most surgeries will be running concurrent clinics for Covid-19 vaccinations as well as flu. Many are combining the two. Utilising as many of the babblevoice features that can help support staff will, we hope, reduce the burden of these responsibilities.

And finally, if a surgery needs a helping hand to get any of this functionality set up, our UK-based engineers are ready and waiting for their call to assist in any way they can.