Service changes and helplines

The NHS Highlands Interface Group have reviewed how secondary care teams are updating primary care teams on changes in their services. 

NHS Highlands have two support helplines for patients with specific long-term health conditions, where Nurse Specialists lead direct access secondary-care support services for existing patients. 

These helplines can sometimes be paused or reduced due to capacity issues, such as sickness. However, these services changes were not always communicated to primary care. This created confusion for clinicians and meant that patients were sometimes given incorrect information about the support available to them.

After discussion at the Interface Group, it was agreed that primary care leadership should be notified whenever secondary care services stop, change or are temporarily suspended to enable the cascading of this information. 

A test-case improvement approach was used with representatives of the relevant teams being asked to contribute to the new process.

For more information on this case study, please contact scotland.interface@rcgp.org.uk