Sue Hill - Workflow Manager at Ashdown Medical Group in East Sussex - sat down with us and explained how Thornfield's Correspondence Management course helped transform their working practices and achieved a 75% reduction in letters sent to their doctors.

Hello Sue, thanks for speaking to us. Can you introduce your organisation and what you do? 

Ashdown Medical Group is a GP Surgery based on two sites in East Sussex with a total of approximately 14,000 patients. The surgery is managed by 5 partners who oversee a number of salaried GP’s, clinical pharmacists, nurses, HCA’s, dispensary staff, reception staff and the administration team.

How long have you worked with Thornfields and for what main training requirements? 

As a GP Surgery we offer on-site medical care for all primary care concerns, which means there is a large volume of administrative work, both incoming and outgoing. With this in mind, the partners decided that we would start an improved system of workflow for our incoming mail. We approached Thornfields in August 2024 for a training programme.

What was the specific training need/gap that you needed to fill? What made you choose Thornfields? 

Prior to 2024 our workflow system was less than ideal; it was slow and left a backlog of letters every day, meaning there was more of a chance of medication changes being missed and even a chance that diagnoses could be missed. All letters were sent to the doctors on the day that the letters arrived, and due to the large volume it meant that the doctors were not always able to complete the letters in the timescale provided. This caused time-related issues and was a problem for all involved. It was not unheard of for the doctors to start working in the early hours of the day and to continue into the night in order to try to keep on top of the workload.

In the early months of 2024 we introduced AI software to our workflow team, a programme that had the potential of solving all our problems – but it was not suitable, so we did not continue with it.

With new staff, we started on a training programme with Thornfields, a company that our Practice Manager had sourced from the internet.

Click the image below to view a summary of the case study

What was the main objective you wanted to achieve by working with Thornfields?

We needed a smoother system, to use our experience to find a way of reducing the amount of letters sent to the doctors – hoping to reduce them by at least 75%. We needed to be able to clear our workload on a daily basis, to ensure the safety of our patients, and to give the doctors the time to concentrate on their appointments rather than unnecessary paperwork.

What training did you choose to receive? Please describe the key benefits your organisation received.

We chose to proceed with the Correspondence Management (click link to view) workshop, as a way of optimising our workflow.

The benefits of having this type of training were as follows:

• The workflow team had the trainer to hand for any problems we may have.
• The trainer had the background of how to structure the workflow optimisation and adjust it to fit within this practice.
• The workflow team had the support and training to give us the confidence to deal with the letters that did not need to go to the doctors. Our trainer helped us recognise the different types of letters, which go to whom, and which we can deal with ourselves.  
• The trainer put our minds at rest as far as the implications of the legal aspects are concerned. A structure of GP champions was put in place and that gave us more support and somewhere to go to for advice/help.

How has the solution impacted your organisation? Are there any features of it you found particularly useful?

There is a very broad range of benefits for this type of training:

• The doctors had their letters reduced from 90%-100% to 20%-25%, thus giving them more time to do the things needed to keep the practice running safely and smoothly.
• We have had some really good feedback from our GP’s, they are very happy that their workload has been reduced and the wheat has been separated from the chaff.
• The other members of staff within the company are benefiting, the letters are now filed quicker and so can be found easily, also having a structured workflow team means that the other staff members are more aware of where to go for help if needed.
• The most important people are of course the patients – their letters are being coded correctly, distributed correctly and all of this is being done quickly.  
• There are a limited amount of errors, which are picked up with audits, these errors are discussed in our monthly team meeting. The errors found are RAG rated for ease, our majority is now Green with the odd Amber.