CARE NAVIGATION—WHAT THIS MEANS FOR PATIENTS
Patients may have noticed when contacting the Practice to book appointments our Patient Service Administrators ask you for a brief outline of your problem. Care Navigation training given to frontline staff enables the team to provide patients with more information about local health and wellbeing services, both within and outside of primary care, in a safe, effective way.
Care navigation will offer the patient ‘choice not triage’ to access the most appropriate service first which as we know, isn’t always the GP. Care navigators will not make clinical decisions but when a patient presents with symptoms that meet the access criteria for other services or clinicians such as physiotherapist, pharmacist, optician or a third sector service, the care navigator can confidently offer these choices and enable the patient to go straight to the service which best meets their health and wellbeing needs.
Dr Nick Hayward, a GP and the clinical lead at NHS Bradford District and Craven clinical commissioning groups, said the scheme would help people to access the right care from the relevant service from the outset. He added: “Care Navigation is about choice, not triage.
To view the full article around care navigation, published by the Telegraph & Argus please click the following link: Care Navigation – help direct patients to the most appropriate care
