Taurus Healthcare and Healthwatch Herefordshire have developed a series of videos aimed at explaining some of the new healthcare roles available to patients from their GP Practice.

The first three of these have now been published and focus on:

• Clinical Pharmacists 
• First Contact Practitioner/Physiotherapists 
• Care Coordinators 

In creating these videos, we are hoping that patients will gain a greater understanding of the variety of specialists available to them via their GP Surgery. When the receptionist (sometimes called care navigator) asks callers to describe the reason for their call to surgery, s/he is doing so in order to direct them to the most appropriate specialist for their particular needs.

These additional roles – and others, such as Occupational Therapist, Social Prescriber, Health and Wellbeing Coordinators and Paramedics – offer patients access to more specialist skills and knowledge – and usually more time - than a GP can provide. We would encourage patients to be guided by Reception team members at their surgery who are trained to offer this advice.

Further videos will be released in the course of the next two-three months, featuring Social Prescribers, Occupational Therapists and Paramedics.