Bridge End Surgery

The DJP is really good and it's clear that it has been created by a team who have experience in the NHS, knowledge of their systems and general practice, and who have an understanding of who we are and what we need to do.

Case Study

Paul Dodds, a practice manager from Chester le Street in County Durham, his practice Bridge End Surgery had been using the DJP Foundation Licence, which is free for all practice users, having found out about it through NHS Digital.

He was then offered a six-month trial of the Enhanced Licence to discover the added benefits and extra modules. Completing the Patient Communications, GP Online Services, Digital Inclusion and Online Consultations modules, he was able to focus on areas for improvement in digital maturity for his practice.

Paul discussed with Redmoor Health Digital Programme Manager Clare Temple and Project Support Officer Kirsten Adams about how he is encouraging the Digital & Transformation Lead for his PCN (Primary Care Network) to complete the modules in the DJP to share the improvement for practices and patients in their area with a view to using it across the PCN to understand their digital journey.

When asked about the time it takes to complete the assessments in the DJP, Paul made note of the fact that the DJP provides a focus on what the practice needs to do and creates an easy-to-understand action plan. He said:

”“The DJP prompted me to do some important housekeeping and change the approach we took in practice. This was work practices must do anyway, but the DJP gave me prompts so I knew what to expect and what I needed to do.’’

He went on to say:

”"The key to using this tool is like many others, go with your first answer, don’t dwell on whether it’s a or b, just make an instant judgement because you will go back and fine tune your answers”.

Paul gave some examples of how the resources helped him.

”“For example, the Clinical System Optimisation module provided me with an incredible reminder, that we need to be more robust with our checklists when we set up new users in our clinical systems in practice, and when we decommission when they have left. Ours needed refreshing as the clinical system had moved on but the checklists had not. I have systems in place for ICB staff to renew access at the end of March each year and I need to start taking that approach with other staff who are not directly employed by the practice but also to look at other systems we allow access to, so it has been an incredibly good prompt for me even though extra work.”

De-activating leavers and removing them from the system keeps the system free from clutter and users who have left showing ‘in shadow’ form on the clinical system. This also means that pick lists only contain active users and avoids the problem of sending workflow items to people who have left. Housekeeping for leavers is as important as adding new users and is often a ‘forgotten’ task. This ensures tasks / appointments / pathology / documents / notifications are no longer sent to a user who has left. Clinical System Optimisation module – Digital Journey Planner.

Paul also found the online consultation module useful for reflection:

”“It is the same for online consultations module - it is all about the prompts and reminders, showing me what I need to be asking the practice team to do. We need lots of prompts because there is so much to manage in general practice that this is important, but this is only one part of it.The resources and suggestions for improvement that you can then add to your personalised action plan is an excellent feature.

The DJP is really good and it's clear that it has been created by a team who have experience in the NHS, knowledge of their systems and general practice, and who have an understanding of who we are and what we need to do”

Introduction

The Digital Journey Planner (DJP), created by Redmoor Health in partnership with NHS England, is an innovative online self-assessment tool designed to enhance the knowledge, comprehension, and processes of GP practices with the objective of advancing practice digital maturity.

The DJP is made up of modules, each with a checklist of questions as an assessment, intended to reflect your knowledge and utilisation of digital solutions. It offers guidance, hints, and tips to improve services for patients and effective working in your team.

The tool is designed around three principles:

  • Baseline: Practice teams answer questions about their current digital practices and processes.
  • Learn: Based on the responses to the questions the DJP generates an Improvement Plan which recommends key achievable areas for development.
  • Improve: The Improvement Plan signposts to high-quality tools and resources in one place that help practices implement improvements making the planning process quick and easy.

Whether it is by training and helping you use and embed technology, showcasing the great work you are doing, or helping you learn from experiences we have been part of elsewhere. Contact us to see how we can transform your digital practice.