You can set the number of working hours after which the patient should call the practice if they haven't received a response from you. This will be displayed to patients after they have submitted a request to advise how long they should wait to telephone you if they haven't been contacted by you yet.
This number of hours not be the amount of time it will take to completely resolve their request - it should instead be the amount of time you will take to initially respond to their request. For example, this could be a holding message from a receptionist (and could be a template message you have created for your practice):
- 'Thank you for contacting us, a GP will respond this afternoon'
- 'Thank you for your message, as this a routine request a GP will contact you next Wednesday morning. Please expect a message or telephone call from a withheld number'. (For further information on how to spread demand across different days, read this article.)
For more information on how quickly to initially reply to patients read this article.
