Practice Email Setup Help

This page offers help on setting up your practice email system so that it can be used with the functions of GPUK.net such as online appointment bookings and repeat prescription ordering.

For help on configuring the registration of email addresses with GPUK.net so that you can use them for these functions see another help page Email Configuration Help .

An appropriate email setup is crucial for correct running of the appointment, repeat prescription, and registration systems so please study this section carefully, and implement it fully.

For other uses of the website email to your practice is not essential, but it may be worth giving it some attention along the lines indicated here since your patients may expect you to accept email if you have a website.

Receptionist Email Address. You need a single receptionist email address that can be accessed by whichever receptionist is on duty - it is worse than useless to have incoming email being addressed to a specific person if they are on holiday and you don't have their password. You need to set up a generic receptionist email address and use this as the address set up in the appointment and other systems on GPUK.net.

If you have opted to set up different email addresses for appointment and prescription functions (not recommended except for very large practices) you need to follow these instructions for each of those addresses - you must always ensure that the addresses used by GPUK.net systems are able to be read every morning by whoever is on duty.

Of course the details depend on how your email at the practice is set up.

• If you have a single standalone email PC, whether internet or NHSnet, then that is the simplest. Ensure that you have a user set up whose mailbox is accessible to all staff, and this is the address that you register with GPUK.net (on the Email Maintenance page linked from the Admin index page) for use by the appointments repeats and registration systems.

• You may have a mail router of some sort set up in the practice e.g. VPOP3. Again you can set up a user ("receptionist" would be a good name) and ensure that email to that user can be accessed by all.

• Increasingly it is likely that you may have an NHSnet connection at the practice. Your NHSnet system may be like one of the above or you may have a Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Outlook. This latter is the most complicated scenario, and we provide detailed instructions with screenshots to assist you in setting up Exchange and Outlook.

Once you have set up a generic user whose mailbox can be accessed by any of your staff, you need to train your staff to check this mailbox every day. If you are using the appointments system you must check this every morning without fail since patients may have made bookings overnight and you need to transfer the bookings to your practice appointment system. Also, you will want to establish early in the day which appointments for that day have not been booked on the website and so can be released for extras on today's surgery lists.

To spread the workload it is sensible to check the mailbox later in the day, at least once. This will lessen the early morning workload, and enable you to provide a faster turnaround for repeat prescriptions. Of course you can check it as often as you like, but the minimum is the obligatory early morning check of the overnight appointment bookings.

Handling Email Messages. Since several different people will be accessing the receptionist mailbox, you need to design a system that suits your practice for sharing of this workload without losing messages. This depends on the specifics of your email setup, but one strategy is as follows.

• Incoming mail is read and actioned (prescriptions are prepared, appointment bookings are transferred to the appointment system, etc).

• Once a message has been actioned it needs to be moved from the mailbox to avoid duplication of work when someone else views that mailbox. You could set up separate folders for storing actioned messages.

• You should store actioned messages for a while to resolve any disputes e.g. over prescription items ordered online.

• If you use a separate folder for actioned messages, you could set up a separate folder for each day of the month (or perhaps just for each day of the week). As the same day of the week or month comes around again you could empty the folder with that day number since by then the messages will be nearly a month old.

• Of course you can adopt different policies to those recommended above if you prefer.

Summary

Before going live with the GPUK.net interactive systems it is crucial that you set up your practice email along the lines of the above.

1. Whatever email address you want to use for GPUK.net to forward appointment bookings and prescription requests must be readily available to whichever staff are on duty.

2. Your staff must be trained to check the email every morning (as a minimum) and to action it accordingly.

3. You need a system to handle old emails as per your practice policy which will perhaps be along the lines above.

4. You need to reconfigure your GPUK.net settings, using the utilities linked from your Admin page, to ensure that the Receptionist email address that you have set up will be used for your appointments/repeats etc.

5. Finally, you need to test it properly before going live. Whilst the appointment and repeat prescription systems are still in demo mode try making appointments with yourself, or ordering prescriptions, and check that the messages get through properly.