Telephone Nurse phone line discontinued
From Thursday 1st of April 2021, we are discontinuing our Telephone Nurse phone line.
We want to be clear that this is NOT taking away this valuable nursing service, and you will still be able to get your questions answered. We know that it has been a consistent frustration for our patients to experience long wait times, and over the past few months we have been analyzing the nature of the requests from patients to the nursing team, in order for us to improve our service to you. We have also spoken with other health practices to see how they manage this service. Did you know that many practices do not have nurses on the other end of the phone waiting for patients to call in?
Our nurses report that many patients who become suddenly unwell, or who want to make an appointment with the doctor, think they have to speak to a nurse to arrange an appointment – this is absolutely false and can in fact lead to a longer wait time for your need to be assessed.
Our vision is to be able to effectively assess for urgency, and have set up the following ways you can get in touch with our nurses.
Please do not use the following mechanisms for urgent issues (for example when you are unexpectedly unwell) – call our reception team who will ask you 4-5 yes/no questions so that they can determine if you need to speak with our Triage Nurse (who assesses urgency into both our Urgent Care Unit and Rapid clinics), or if your doctor needs to call you to assess you. See our overview on management of urgent/same-day appointments here.
We have seen an increase in patients walking in to the clinic to ‘just speak with a nurse for just a moment’. Effective Thursday 1st of April 2021 this option will not be available – if your need is clinically urgent, you will be assessed by our Triage Nurse (who is attached to our Urgent Care Unit) – please note this service carries a small charge, should you not need to see a Doctor or Nurse Practitioner as a result of your visit. We appreciate it may appear that we have plenty of nurses available, the reality is that you take a nurse away from another patient who may be waiting for their appointment, or who has a more urgent need than you. We ask that you refrain from this practice, and get in touch with us as outlined below.
Please be assured that we have ways that all patients can get in touch with our nurses –
- Email/message the nurse via MyIndici and outline the nature of your question/concern – these messages should be clear about what you are wanting an answer to, but kept as concise as possible, remembering that nurses have full access to your notes. However, please do not just email ‘please call’ as this is not specific enough to determine priority of reply.
In MyIndici, go to Messaging, click on the compose button, select Nurse as Provider and then Admin Nurse from the -Select Provider- box
NB: you can sign up to MyIndici from our website https://waikanaehealth.co.nz/myindici/ or give our team a call (04 293 6005 option 2) – our reception team can get you started and show you some tips & tricks on how to get the best out of MyIndici.
- If you are not on MyIndici and have internet access you can Request a Callback (top right of webpage) via our website https://waikanaehealth.co.nz – select from the drop-down Nurse or clinical query, enter your contact details and Submit
- Call our reception team (04 293 6005 option 1) who can book a telephone consult with our nursing team – please do not be offended if you are asked what you would wish to discuss, as this helps us to prioritise your need
- If you have a general health question you can also call Healthline on 0800 611 116 for 24/7 nurse advice
We are committed to responding as quickly as we can, but wait-times may vary depending on the nature of your query – it may be that our team will need to speak with your doctor before they give you a call back.
Our focus is for responses to these queries generate a call to you by the appropriate nurse, so you do not need to write a bible (for MyIndici) – remember that our nursing team has access to your medical notes – the longer it takes to read your message, the longer the response time may be.
Remember that you can use option (1) and (2) above to also request a call-back from our reception and accounts teams.
Our nursing services are chargeable so please be aware that if the nurse is able to help you over the phone or via MyIndici, then the following charges may apply –
Youth 14-17yrs and Adults (CSC and non-CSC) | $10.00 |
Children <14yrs | $0.00 |
Covid Vaccinations
COVID vaccine roll-out. We are having a lot of enquiries about when COVID vaccines will be available. Here is the Ministry of Health’s plan:
A free COVID-19 vaccine will be available to help protect everyone aged 16 and over in Aotearoa from COVID-19. The best way to protect our kaumātua, our whānau and ourselves is to get vaccinated. Find out more about the Covid-19 rollout plan published by the Ministry of Health here.
Other News:
Covid-19 Alert Level 2 – an important update from Waikanae Health – please read
It is unfortunate, but not unexpected, that from 6am Sunday 28 February we re-entered Alert Level 2.
Key things to remember are:
- Current Alert Level 2 is from 6am 28th February until 6am 7th March, UNLESS we are notified differently by the government
- All booked appointments will continue until further notice
- Physical distancing remains in the practice
- Patients with cold/flu like symptoms or unexplained body aches, may have a different care path – please do NOT go to the beach clinic for an appointment (or call in) if you have cold/flu like symptoms as this is our green zone
As we know there will be many of our community worried about getting tested, there will likely be a jump in phone call numbers. We have put more staff on the phones but ask you give consideration when calling us for non-urgent issues, and either hold off calling, or use another method of contact (eg request a call on our website or send us a message on MyIndici and we will call you back when we can).