Overview: The key objective of Care Navigation and Active Signposting is to help patients access the right care at the earliest opportunity. It is a system of ‘triage’ carried out at the first point of contact with the GP Practice by non-clinical staff under direction of the clinical team.
Objective: Active Signposting is a tool to develop the skills and career paths of non-clinical staff. Staff will learn:
- How to move away from a passive role and have a more direct impact on patient health outcomes.
- Develop the skills and abilities needed to undertake Active Signposting
- Establish a clear understanding of the options available locally and be confident in advising and referring patients to care providers who work either within the practice team, primary care network or to external care providers.
Learning Outcomes also include:
- Enhancing skills and confidence to deliver care navigation, active signposting and triage
- Understanding the elements of signposting
- Realising the benefits: patients and practice
- Exploring and adapting protocols
- Using information technology to empower patients
- Maximising patient engagement within your role
- Communicating with patients effectively
- Ensuring patient and staff safety
- Making every contact count
Active Signposting can present a challenging cultural shift for some teams – and the workshop will explore the mechanisms to help make the changes as smooth as possible – some of this will build on the existing understanding, within the practice, of the need to change and a realisation of benefits these changes can have.
There will be interactive exercises throughout the session that will require the attendees to think about a situation that they have previously encountered and to think about how they deal with it and what they would do differently. This will be based on typical scenarios found in GP Practices and will be an opportunity for participants to develop new techniques to deal with enhanced patient interactions. Emphasis will be on developing confident communication skills.
Training Provider: Practice Managers Association (PMA)
