Care Navigation

Please don’t be offended if you are asked what the problem is when you ring Maritime Health Partnership to book an appointment.

This is called Care Navigation and it’s about helping you get access to the service you need!

About Care Navigation

Our specialist Call Handlers are competent in Care Navigation and you will notice that on making contact with the Practice that you will often be asked for a brief outline of your problem.
This helps identify the most appropriate place for your care and helps the Clinical team assess and prioritise appointments.

Through this specialist training, our practice team will be able to direct you to the most appropriate health clinician for your needs first.

Our team will never offer clinical advice or triage; this new way of working is about offering you the choice to see more appropriate professionals in the practice team or even somewhere else. If they can deal with the problem directly, it will often be quicker and means you may not need to see the GP at all.

Effective navigation is a key element of delivering coordinated, person-centered care and support and can play a crucial role in helping people to get the right support, at the right time to help manage a wide range of needs. This may include support with long term conditions, help with finances and signposting to a range of statutory and voluntary sector service.

More importantly though, it means people are seen first by the clinician that is best placed to manage their clinical problem.

The choice is always yours though and you will never be refused a GP appointment but we hope next time you contact your GP and speak with the receptionist you will see the value of seeing another health professional if they are able to help.

If you would like someone to explain this to you in person, a member of our practice team will be happy to help.

The Care Navigator might suggest other professionals such as:

- Advanced Nurse Practitioner
- MSK Physio
- Physicians Associate
- Paramedic
- Pharmacist/Pharmacy Technician
- Specialist Nurse (Diabetes/Respiratory)
- Community Pharmacist Referral
- Mental Health Nurse or Psychological Services
- Social Prescriber
- Practice Nurse
- Support Groups
- Practice Health Champion
- GP Assistant
- Prescriptions Clerk