Sign-ups at the counter, follow-ups forgotten
A patient starts a new medicine that qualifies for the service. The pharmacist signs them up, has the first conversation and notes when the next contact is due. That date goes in the diary, on a sheet, or in the clinical services platform, depending on who did the sign-up.
The follow-up week comes. The diary page is busy. The patient is not on the sheet because the locum used a different one. Some follow-ups happen, some happen late, and some do not happen at all. At the end of the month, somebody tries to work out which stages were completed and can be claimed.
Why follow-ups slip
Follow-ups are scheduled work that competes with unscheduled work. The pharmacist's day is driven by the dispensary and the counter. A call that needs making on Tuesday but can technically be made on Wednesday gets pushed. And the list of calls due is not in front of anyone.
Patients are also hard to reach. The first call goes to voicemail. The second is at a bad time. Nobody records the attempts, so the third try never happens.
Different people doing sign-ups make it worse. The regular pharmacist has one habit, the Saturday locum another. Unless everything lands in the same list, follow-ups are only as reliable as the least organised person who signed a patient up.
What missed follow-ups cost
| Gap | Effect |
|---|---|
| Follow-up not made | The patient misses the support the service is meant to give |
| Stage not completed | Work already done may not be claimable |
| Call attempts unrecorded | Nobody knows whether to try again |
| Records in several places | Month-end claim checks take hours |
What is discussed in each conversation, and whether a patient is suitable, is for the pharmacist under the service specification. We only organise the scheduling, recording and checking.
One follow-up list for every patient
- A single list of every patient on the service, fed from your clinical services platform where it shares data, or from a short sign-up form at the counter.
- Next due date for each patient, calculated from the stage dates you record and shown on a calls-due view each morning.
- Patient reminders by text a day ahead, telling them to expect a call and offering a time that suits them better.
- A call screen with the patient's details, previous attempts and a place to record the outcome, so a missed call becomes a scheduled retry.
- A claim check at month end listing completed stages and whether each has been claimed, where your platform allows that to be read.
- A simple service report showing sign-ups, completion rates and missed follow-ups by month.
The platform you use for recording the service remains the formal record. Our list sits in front of it so the calls are made on time.
Follow-ups that happen on the day they are due
Each morning, the pharmacist or a trained member of the team sees the calls due. Patients have been told to expect them. Missed calls are rescheduled, not forgotten. The month-end claim becomes a quick review instead of a reconstruction.
You also learn something about the service itself: how many sign-ups actually complete, and where they drop off.
Is this how your NMS follow-ups go?
- Follow-up dates are in a diary or on paper
- Locums and regular staff record sign-ups in different places
- You find overdue follow-ups at month end
- Call attempts are not recorded
- You are not sure every completed stage was claimed