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What are administrative eConsults?
Most patients contact the practice, either through eConsult or any other channel, because they have a need that is either clinical or administrative in nature.
We know that a high volume of patient contacts are about administrative matters that often don't need to be reviewed by a clinician initially. Many times, the administrative team can review and triage requests, often actioning and responding to these without clinical input.
Administrative eConsults need a response within 3 working days. A response doesn’t mean you’ve resolved the problem that they consulted for. A response is an acknowledgement that you’ve received their eConsult and a short update on what to expect next.
Many administrative queries can also be handled by patients themselves, without needing to contact the practice, through the NHS App.
Accessing administrative eConsults (patient journey)
Each practice's eConsult landing page will have a number of boxes at the top - from here, patients are clearly signposted to the 'I want administrative help' section.
Patients will then be asked to confirm that they're not asking specifically about medical problems:
Patients will then be asked to select from a list of different types of administrative issues:
Managing administrative eConsults in practice
Once your practice team has identified your administration eConsult reports they can support the clinicians with their workload and reduce demand for appointments.
How can we reduce clinicians workload for administration activity?
Create an administration appointment screen within your clinical system.
All admin eConsult reports navigated to the admin appointment screen.
Admin team to review and respond and close all eConsult reports where appropriate.
The admin team could be responding and closing the following eConsult queries:
Blood test results
Update on referral letters
General letters
Medical requests
Mat B1
Fit note - once the GP has signed the document
Exception certificates
This list is not exhaustive!
The practice would create a standard operating procedure (SOP) to support response or closure activity for the administration team.
Mandating administration requests can see a reduction of phone calls to the Practice by up to 50% and many of our practices have moved to include this within their model of care.
Want to know more about managing administration eConsult reports in practice? Contact practice.support@econsult.health
If you have any questions or you feel that this article could be improved, please feel free to give us some feedback by emailing us, pressing the emojis below or using the chat button on the bottom right-hand side of this page to speak to one of the eConsult team.