Navigating Patient Access With Call Routing

Surgery Connect Tools

Up to 20 minutes duration in bite-sized chunks | Online study | Certificate |

5
(3)

This course will provide a high-level overview of the benefits that can be achieved from setting up intelligent call routing options through your Surgery Connect system.

It will cover all the key things you need to consider when building your call flows and will give you some examples of where calls can easily be rerouted to alternative pathways (e.g. the NHS App, Pharmacies or via SMS to other services etc).

Learning Objectives

By completing this eLearning you will understand:

  • The benefits and key features of intelligent call routing
  • The things to consider when implementing your call flows and routing options
  • How to build the foundations of a new call routing flow
  • How to build a call flow
  • About self-serving options available to your patients
NHS Icons

NHS Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care

With the Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care update and actions for 2024/25 in the forefront of all our minds, throughout the course we will call out the direct benefits of our features and how they can help you to meet the requirements and ultimately, the associated funding.

Reasons to Update Your Call Routing

  • Patient’s call reaches the best point of care for their needs in the shortest time
  • Reduces the number of calls in the queues
  • Easy redirection to other ways to service patient needs, such as sending links to the NHS App or online consultation tools
  • Improved patient satisfaction as they reach the service they require quickly and easily
  • Will help you meet some of the requirements of the Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care update and actions for 2024/25. Often referred to as the Primary Care Access Recovery Plan (PCARP).
  • Saves valuable call time when specific Groups are used – even shaving a few seconds off each call adds up

Introducing Call Routing

You can keep your surgery information accurate and route patients accordingly by utilising the advanced features of Surgery Connect and in particular, X-flow.

Lessons

Introducing Call Routing Defining Your Business Processes Our Scenario

Building the Foundations

Lessons

Defining Your Calendars Creating and Managing Groups

Building Your Call Flow

Lessons

Setting Up Your Call Flow Building Your Flow When Open Building Your Flow When Closed Testing and Deploying

Enabling Self-serving Features

Lessons

Check and Cancel
Course Assessment Summary and Resources

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) allows users to make voice calls using a broadband Internet connection instead of a regular (or analogue) phone line.

Example Monthly Management ReportDownload

General Terms

Inbound callAn inbound call is a call made into the surgery on one of your inbound telephone numbers
Outbound callAn outbound call is a call made from the surgery’s service (external calls only)
Queued callA queued call are those that joined a Group queue and started the queueing process to speak to one of your staff
Missed callMissed calls are calls that could have been answered by a staff member because it either targeted a user directly or joined a queue for a distribution group. A call does not have to make it to the front of a queue to count as missed, it purely has to join the queue
Abandoned callAbandoned calls are calls that your staff had no chance of answering as they either did not target a user directly or did not enter a queue for a group of users. Situations where this could be the case are when the caller rings in whilst the practice is closed, or the caller does not respond to a menu and hangs up before making a choice
CLIThe CLI is the number displayed in the call ID to the recipient of that call This may be withheld or a telephone number. It also relates to the callers number when they ring into the Surgery Connect service.
Average call durationThis is an average length of a call - Active time on an answered call - this does not include any queue time
Total call durationThis is the actual length of a call including all of the call flow, queueing, talk or hold time that may have occurred
Maximum call concurrencyThis is how many individual calls are happening at the same time

Group/queue terms

Queued for groupThe total number of calls that queued for that group
Answered from queueThe number of calls in the queue that were answered
% answered from queueThe percentage of calls answered from the queue
Missed from queueThis is the total number of calls that joined the queue but did not get answered
% missed from queueThe percentage of calls missed from the queue
Missed from queue under 10 secondsThese are the calls that joined the queue but the caller hung up before 10 seconds of queueing had occurred. These may not want to be considered when assessing call answering efficiency as there was little chance of your staff answering these calls due to the caller hanging up so quickly
Queue durationThe length of time the caller spent in the queue

Patient Callback terms

Calls when patient callback activeThis is the total number of inbound calls whilst patient callback was offered
Calls handled by patient callbackThis is the number of calls that chose the patient callback option
Callbacks madeThis is the number of callback calls made
Callbacks acceptedThis is the number of callback calls that were answered and accepted by the patients
Callbacks rejectedThis is the number of callback calls that were unanswered or cancelled by the patients
Queue timeoutThis is where a maximum queue time has been set on the service and the time in that queue is reached
Caller rang back inThis is where a caller has selected a callback but has rung in and rejoined the queue before they have received a callback from the surgery
Caller rang back in - rejoined queueThis where a caller has selected a callback but has rung in and rejoined the queue before they have received a callback from the surgery
Caller rang back in - hung upThis is where a caller has called in again and hung up
Caller rang back in - cancelledThis is where a caller has a callback booked but has rung in and cancelled that callback when given the option
Time in virtual queueThis is the amount of time the callers would have spent in the queue if they had not selected a callback
Report Column NameExplanation
Hour/DayThe report can be by hour, or by day
Calls When Patient Callback ActivePatient Callback only becomes active when your parameters are met - this tells you how many calls you received overall when those parameters were met
Calls Handled by Patient CallbackPatient Callbacks requested (in that hour/day)
Callbacks MadePatient Callbacks made (in that hour/day)
Callbacks AcceptedSuccessful callbacks (in that hour/day)
Callbacks RejectedCallback rejected
Callback Attempts ExceededCalllback where the attempts were exceeded - not answered
Queue TimeoutWhere any max queue duration settings are met
Callback ResetCallback cancelled due to closure times
Caller Rang Back InCaller rang back in before callback attempted
Caller Rang Back in - Rejoined QueueCaller rang back in before callback attempted and re-joined the queue
Caller Rang Back in - Hung UpCaller rang back in before callback attempted and hung up (stayed in callback queue)
Caller Rang Back in - CancelledCaller rang back in before callback attempted and cancelled the callback request
Total time in virtual queueTotal time all calls in that hour/day were in the virtual queue
Avg time in virtual queueAverage time each call in that hour/day was in the virtual queue
Total Time in real queueIf someone rings back in and rejoins the “real” queue this would be reflected here.
Avg time in real queueIf someone rings back in and rejoins the “real” queue this would be reflected here.