Communication Policy

There are multiple ways in which this practice communicates with patients and third parties – face to face, telephone, fax or email are the most common.

Telephone – Patients can contact the practice between 8:00am and 5:30pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and 8:00am to 7:00pm Wednesday. We are also available from 9:00 until 12:00am Saturday. Our reception staff may use a triage system to assess the urgency of the patients’ needs and concerns. Our reception staff will also perform a three-point identifier check to ensure the correct patient chart is matched to the patient on the phone. Please note, it is often not possible to speak to the doctor at the time of calling. A secure message will be sent to the doctor who will return your call when possible, exceptions may be made if the matter is deemed to be urgent.

When correspondence is received from other healthcare providers, it is directly imported into the patient’s file and then sent through to the doctor to review. This includes results, emails and specialist letters. If the addressed doctor is not available and the correspondence is urgent, another doctor will review and action as necessary.

Email – email is not a secure form of communication and is not encouraged by Redlands General Practice for this reason. If you do choose to contact the surgery via email, this is considered as patient consent for our staff to reply via email. Our staff endeavour to respond to email messages within 24 hours.

SMS – SMS messages are sent to remind patients of scheduled appointments, health reminders and health recalls. Please make sure you update the practice if there is a change to your mobile number. Please let us know if you would like to be removed from the SMS list.

Post – for patients who have opted out of SMS, a letter may be sent regarding reminders or recalls. Letters received by the practice are scanned into the patient chart and forwarded to the doctor to review.

Our website is updated regularly and contains the practice contact details, location, opening hours and information regarding fees and services offered. Our after-hours doctor service details are also available, as is online booking for the practitioners during office hours.

Communicating with patients with special needs
A contact list of translator and interpreter services and services for patients with a disability is maintained, updated regularly and readily available to all staff at reception. These include:

• National Relay Service (NRS) found here
• Auslan services 1300 AUSLAN
• Translation and Interpreter Service (TIS) Doctors Priority Line 1300 131 450