Physio Direct is a telephone assessment, treatment and advice service for patients presenting with musculoskeletal conditions or injuries. For referral to be assessed over the telephone by a Senior Physiotherapist please call 0300 123 0991.

  For instructions on how to use this service follow this link

Open Access Triage Clinics

Open Access Triage Clinics offer face to face assessment, treatment and advice for patients presenting with musculoskeletal conditions or injuries.

For referral please contact 0300 123 0991 for further information.

Automated Arrivals System

We are pleased to inform you that from the 01st June, 2009 we will have an Automated Arrivals system for our patients benefit and use.

The Automated Arrivals system is a self-contained system which enables patients to autonomously announce their arrival for an appointment at the practice, using a touch screen interface and their date of birth and sex. This hopefully reduces queues at the reception desk, allowing the receptionist to deal with other more complicated enquiries.

When the patient uses the system to announce their arrival:

• A message is displayed, informing them who they are seeing and the approximate waiting time.

• If the patient has any alerts in their record, a message is displayed on the system, telling the patient to report to reception.

• The practice administrative system is then updated to reflect that the patient has arrived.

The Automated Arrivals system is designed and developed by clinicians and patients, ensuring that it is a robust but simple to use system that presents data in an accurate and ‘patient friendly’ format.

Information Management Technology Directed Enhanced Service

We have spent a gruelling twelve months working towards the above (IM&T DES) which is to improve data quality standards and strive towards “Data fit for sharing”. We have finally achieved our goal and have now been signed off as “officially paperlight” – the first practice in both North Staffs and Stoke. The accreditation lasts for three years and we will continue to maintain this standard

Introduction of Docman

To help us improve on our current scanning system we have recently introduced Docman. Docman is a fully integrated electronic document management system developed specifically for Primary Care practices. It enables us to manage our paper and electronic documents in a secure environment, whilst providing controlled access directly from our EMIS clinical record. We are conscious that it will improve integrity of filed information including reducing the risk of misfiling and missing documents and it should also improve productivity and service - documents can be found in an instant. We are hoping that this will contribute to making the process of becoming paperless a painless task!

Online repeat prescription ordering - Online services 

Setting up
 
We are pleased to announce the introduction of our repeat prescription online requesting facility which does exactly what it suggests. Please initially request a Registration Letter, which can only be obtained in person at the practice. You cannot create an account without one and (unless you are well known to the practice staff) you need photo identification, ie a passport or new style driving licence, in order for it to be issued.


Once you are registered
 
We are keen to improve access for our patients on regular repeat "scripts" but also wary of the potential dangers of prescribing non-regular scripts this way. Therefore we would remind patients that ONLY regular repeat prescriptions can be ordered in this way and, unfortunately, any attached messages to the request are unlikely to be acted on (especially ones like "could I also have some more of those pink tablets with black spots on?"!!). You can, however, let us know of any of the three Biddulph or Biddulph Moor pharmacies that you'd like to collect your script on your behalf.
 
You can log back onto EmisAccess via the same button to view the progress of your script request at any time. Please remember scripts can take two days to be fully processed so, if possible, give us three days notice.

You will find the button for this on the Online Services page - this can be accessed from the home page

Choose and Book system

Patients want to be more involved in decisions and making choices about their healthcare.  The NHS is currently trying to give patients a greater say in how they are treated.  This includes giving access to a wider range of primary care services and increasing choice of where, when and how to get medicines, treatment and care.

Choose and Book is a national service that, for the first time, combines electronic booking and a choice of hospital, date and time for first outpatient appointments.  It will eventually revolutionise the current booking    system with patients being able to choose their initial appointment, and book it on the telephone or via the internet at a time that is more convenient for them.  As you would expect from the introduction of such a new system there are teething problems as it is still very much in the early stages