Building Safety Nets with Smart Reporting at Trinity and Bowthorpe Medical Practice
Overview
“Using SystmOne’s built-in reporting tools meant we could identify the problem, build the solution ourselves, and put a safety net in place quickly without relying on external development.”
Benjamin Kind
Operations Manager
Trinity and Bowthorpe Medical Practice
At Trinity and Bowthorpe Medical Practice, patient safety and reliable care pathways are a clear priority.
When the practice identified a vulnerability in its referral process, the team turned to SystmOne’s built-in clinical reporting tools to design and implement their own automated safety net.
Using functionality already available within the system, they were able to create a solution themselves, without relying on their software supplier to build bespoke reports or workflows.
The result is a strong example of the flexibility, autonomy, and advanced reporting capability available within SystmOne. By putting control directly in the hands of the practice, the team was able to respond quickly to an operational risk, reduce manual checking, and improve workflow efficiency through a solution tailored to their own needs.
The Challenge
The practice found that referrals could occasionally slip through the net between a GP generating a referral letter and the secretarial team sending it onward. Although existing protocols prompted GPs to send a task once a referral letter had been created, these prompts could still be postponed or, on occasion, forgotten.
While the practice was pleased with the systems already in place, they wanted an additional safeguard to protect against human error, particularly for Two Week Wait (2WW) referrals, where delays can be especially significant.
The Solution
“You don’t need to overcomplicate reporting, if you can identify the point of failure in a process, SystmOne gives you the tools to build an effective safeguard around it.”
Benjamin Kind
Operations Manager
Trinity and Bowthorpe Medical Practice
Using SystmOne’s intuitive clinical reporting interface and Batch Reporting feature, the team designed an automated referral safety net. Their approach was deliberately simple: identify the exact point of failure in the workflow and build a report to monitor it.
The process was initially trialled with 2WW referrals, as these were the most time-critical pathways for the practice.
The report runs weekly and automatically pulls a list of any patients who have had a referral letter generated but no appropriate referral code subsequently added.
SystmOne then creates a task for the secretarial team who use the solution day to day, complete with a ready-made patient list to review and action. This has helped automate an important part of the team’s workflow and reduce the need for manual checking.
A key advantage was that the solution could be created and managed internally by the practice team, using functionality already built into SystmOne. This gave the practice the flexibility to design, test, refine, and implement the report themselves, without needing to rely on their software supplier to build reports on their behalf.
The solution was developed in one week, followed by two weeks of testing within the management team before being rolled out to the secretarial team. It has now been in live use for around six weeks.
Outcomes and Benefits
Since implementation, the practice has reported clear and measurable benefits:
- 0 missed referrals recorded in the last month following internal auditing
- Improved patient safety through an additional safeguard against human error
- More efficient workflows through automated weekly checks, ready-made patient lists, and less reliance on manual reporting processes
- Improved staff experience, with the secretarial team reporting that tasks are easy to audit and action
- Greater autonomy and control, with reports built, adapted, and managed internally by the practice team
- Flexible future use, with the same batch reporting method available for future safety netting needs
Summary
“This project has shown how clinical reporting and batch reporting can automate workload, improve staff efficiency, and strengthen patient safety across general practice.”
Benjamin Kind
Operations Manager
Trinity and Bowthorpe Medical Practice
Trinity and Bowthorpe Medical Practice’s approach shows how practices can use the reporting tools already available within SystmOne to identify risks, automate routine checks, and strengthen patient safety.
By keeping the solution simple and targeted, the team implemented a new safety net quickly, improved staff workflows, and achieved zero missed referrals within the first month of auditing.
It also highlights the wider opportunity for practices to use inbuilt SystmOne reporting to automate routine processes and build future safeguards across General Practice.