There are some more changes afoot at our practice this week. We hope these changes will be for the better, rather than just another change for change sake, but we are very hopeful they will improve access for our patients and improve our work life perhaps as well.
So, what is about to happen?
This week our website will be enabled to give access to our patients to:
- Order their repeat prescriptions online
- Book an appointment online
- Cancel an appointment online
- Register as a patient at our practice.
To be able to use this system, you will need to request a username and password from the practice. Once you are issued with your username and password, by the way you will need one for each member of your family if you wish to use this system for your family, you will be able to access it a short time after (about an hour later).
Ordering Repeat Prescriptions
In order to request your repeat prescriptions, please scroll down to the bottom of our website page, where you will find the following:
Click on the 'OrderYour Repeat Prescription' tab and it will take you to the logging on screen for SystmOnline. Log on using your username and password issued by the practice and you will be able to choose whether you wish to order a prescription, book an appointment or cancel an appointment .
When choosing to order your prescription, this should give you a list of the medication on your medical record, which has been marked for repeat prescribing.
Tick the ones you require and complete the order.
Not all medication you have previously been issued with may be marked for repeat prescribing. Sometimes medication has been used as a trial, for a course only or for occasional use. We call these 'acute' prescriptions and they may not be able to be requested online, but may need to be requested directly from the surgery instead. Bear in mind that we do not accept prescription requests over the phone.
This will lead to a message being sent to our computer system that you have requested your medication and we will then process this request as appropriate. Unless there are any problems with your request (eg a medication review is required before any further prescription for this item can be issued), you will then be able to collect the prescription form from the surgery within 3 working days.
Book an appointment online
We have also arranged for some of our appointments to be available for online booking. Just like all our appointments this will only be possible up to a maximum of 10 days in advance for some appointments, other appointments are only available for 'On The Day' booking. However, you do have the opportunity to even book an appointment at the times that our surgery is closed (weekend, night time), hopefully giving you better access to our services.
You will again need to register for online services by requesting an username and password from the practice and you will then be set up to access this service as well.
On accessing the appointment booking service, you will be able to choose the appointments with the doctor/nurse of choice, if this is available at the time.
Please bear the following simple rules in mind when booking an appointment:
- One appointment only allows for one patient to be seen, book one appointment per patient.
- One appointment only generally allows for one problem to be dealt with appropriately, please book one appointment per problem.
- If you are aware that your particular problem needs more than just 10 minutes to deal with, please book a double (2 consecutive) appointment.
This is not to cause you any trouble, but to make sure that we can give your problems the attention they need as well as trying to ensure that waiting times in the surgery are kept down to a minimum.
Cancel an appointment online
Made an appointment, but you can't make it after all? Please cancel your appointment, so the slot can be used by another patient in need of an appointment.
You will now also be able to do this online, we are however not sure yet, whether this is only possible for those appointments that have been booked online or also for appointments made in different ways. We hope it will be possible for all appointments booked.
Of course it will still be possible to ring us to cancel as well.
Register as a patient at our practice online
It is also possible to register as a patient with our practice online. It is important to realise that registering through this service does not automatically mean that you are accepted as a patient at our practice. This still relies on the following:
- Bringing in the registration form to the practice to be processed (you can fill this in and print this off from SystmOnline and sign it, then hand it in at our reception desk)
- The practice accepting you as a patient. This depends on whether you live within our practice area. We only accept patients who live within our designated practice area.
So, we feel there are some exciting times to come with some great changes that we hope will benefit our patients.
Dr J.E.C. Bennekers
