mediary^® the changes taking place.....

Your Feedback

Thank you to all our practices and representatives who have taken the time to feedback on improvements to the mediary^® network.

We are committed to listening to all of our customers to ensure you get the best from mediary.

We are currently collecting feedback from our registered practices in the form of a questionnaire and will feedback on this information soon..

All feedback, questions or comments are welcome so please contact us on 0700 393 2 393 or e-mail info@mediary.co.uk.

In mediary practices, more appointments are booked online than in the traditional way. This represents significant saved receptionist hours, and a reduction in telephone and waiting room congestion.

This is what GP Practices are saying about mediary....

We are a large practice spread over 2 sites with 7 GPs, 3 PNs and 10,500 patients. We have used mediary for around 1 year now. We now have less representatives phoning or calling into the practice as appointments can be booked on-line. We hope in the future more reps will use this facility as it greatly befits the practice with more appropriate use of reception time being spent on patient care and frees up telephone lines for patient contact.

We are currently using mediary in conjunction with Gpass. This works extremely well for our practice. I have also used the messaging service within mediary, which is a tremendous advantage to the practice.

Marion McMahon, PM, Glasgow

We have been using the Mediary system for a couple of months now and it has been an asset in many ways. Firstly, we have found that the number of medical reps actually presenting at reception has decreased. This has meant more time can be given to patients and other administration tasks. Secondly, the system has allowed for a wider rage of reps to access our surgery, reps which would not necessarily pass by our door and request to see our clinicians. The system is succinct, efficient and simple to use: cancelling appointments for clinicians who are sick is now done by the use of a simple sms or email. Reps that have failed to attend an appointment are now kept on record as opposed to before when we had no stringent system of seeing who had failed to turn up. All in all, mediary has many advantages and we hope that reps will continue to use and support mediary in the future as we do.

Jupiter House Surgery

The Mediary system was installed in this Practice 3 months ago and in that time I can certainly see the benefits. Features of the system that have impressed me the most are:

1. Installation and training was carried out without any disruption to the Practice
2. I made the rules regarding the booking of reps appointments and Mediary built them into my package
3. Mediary staff have been very friendly and helpful.
4. It is a simple system to use and has cut down the number of reps who were constantly in the queue at the reception desk
5. SMS messaging/Notice Board facility for contacting reps is very useful.

Pat Shearn, Park Surgery, Trecynon

I was introduced to Mediary by Maggie Jamieson. The timing was perfect as I was about to open the diary for rep appointments for the whole of 2006. She sat with me on the day to help with any problems and I found the system very easy to use. Although I still had to do this via telephone calls from reps due to the short timescale, I look forward to December this year when the appointments can mostly be booked by the reps themselves which will save me having to use half a day to do it on the phone. I should also add that it is very easy to cancel appointments using Mediary – they do all the contact.

The flexibility of the system may mean that I change the timescale for release of appointments and have a rolling release rather than all at once. New reps many have a better chance of getting an appointment if the full year is not booked in one day

Liz Bailllie – Lincluden Surgery Uddingsone

We have been part of Mediary for 2 years and have found it beneficial to our practice. It is a much more organised way of being able to offer representatives appointments with the GP’s. Mediary acts a time save for both the practice and the representative as it allows the representative access to our available appointments anywhere, anytime, online, therefore frees up more needed time for the practice manager to use elsewhere.

Leanne Kidd, Practice Secretary, Cumnock Health Centre

One of the great benefits of using Mediary in our small surgery is that we have been able to reduce the volume of reps dropping in on spec for an appointment. This was real inconvenience, especially in the mornings, due to mainly lack of space at reception and the added pressure on the receptionist to take time with the rep when patients and phones were needing to be dealt with. We do find Mediary a very convenient method of contact reps.

Marjory McGinly, Practice Manager, Glasgow

What more can I say, not only have you saved my girls time and effort but you have made it easier for them to do their own job. To those reps who don’t use Mediary! You know who you are! This is what I have to say: What would you prefer? Drive all the way to surgery 30 miles away, wait 30 minutes to 1 hour to then be told that there are no appointments available! How much would that cost you in petrol, time and effort? It takes two minutes to book your appointment from the comfort of your home and not only that the more you book the less it cost! So what’s the problem? Not only that you could now also get appointments for GP’s you may have never seen before! I have had reps coming in stating that Mediary goes against ABPI code of practice! What I want to know is how!? As far as I’m concerned it is no different than ringing up for an appointment to a surgery as with some representatives having other people ringing to enquire regarding appointment based or spec! How much will that cost you. USE OR LOOSE! You want to do your job and see a GP? We want to do ours and see patients. Both our times are precious so don’t waste it. Use the diary or loose the appointment. From a very happy practice manager with Mediary

Amanda Sullivan, Practice Manager, Eagle Street Surgery, Accrington

Since having Mediary installed in the surgery we have notice that the arranging of reps appointments is a great deal more efficient and easier. On a busy day the surgery is very hectic and we have to prioritise workload regarding the importance of each situation. Not having rep appointments to arrange has taken the pressure off us as a practice and enabled us to concentrate on the daily running of the surgery. We are also finding the cancelling of reps appointments with Mediary very straightforward, basically we can do this at the touch of a button whilst keeping the phone line free. What we find very handy is the notice board, that if we run out of stationary we can put it on here and if a rep is in the area we can receive these items which we require. When we found out about Mediary were concerned about the training but we were surprised to find that is very straightforward and not at all time consuming.

We have also received positive feedback from medical reps who have also found it makes their job easier. They have no more travelling or queuing to do when trying to book an appointment with GP’s. They also do not miss out on bookings if they are unable to get to the surgery

I would say to any surgery who are considering having this service to go for it as we have noticed a big difference in just one month of having it installed.

The Surgery, Victoria Gardens Neath

We at Pytchley Court health centre have found Mediary to be a real asset in terms of managing representative’s appointments, and we would like to see more representatives using your service.

Mrs S Salmon, Practice Manager, Pytchley Court Health Centre, Northampton

The practice is now paperlite going towards paperless and I become interested in Mediary because of the fact everything we do we put on computer, and this seemed to me the way forward. Since being installed the practice has found this to be very helpful, and the practice does not seem to have valuable time wasted, dealing with medical reps at the desk.

The staff have been trained by Fiona Welsh on two occasions and seem to be confident in what they are doing. They feel it is much easier and less time consuming and have enjoyed the training very much, they certainly know the system better than me, and I have left this in their capable hands, once again this allows the practice to function more efficiently. I would certainly recommend this system as the way forward for surgeries, helping to make life easier in their working environment and I am sure life will be easier for the medical reps also.

Janis Brownlie, Practice Manager, Craigallian Medical Centre, Glasgow

I would like to add my support to the provision of medical representative appointments through the services of Mediary. I have been using the service now for just under a year and have found it to be tremendously useful.

Due to the volume of medical representatives either presenting at the practice or telephoning for appointments, the partners were seriously considering stopping all lunch or ordinary appointments. However having seen the Mediary demonstration at the Practice Managers conference in Dunblane I was able to persuade them to give Mediary a try. The results were practically instantaneous; book openings are now a thing of the past, reps no longer outnumber patients in the waiting area, and there are fewer reps tying up the phone lines.

I have also used the messaging service available within Mediary and have had instant replies back from representatives contacted for various reason. Again I think this is a tremendous advantage for both the medical reps and myself.

Genevieve Hughes, Practice Manager, Health Centre, Beith

...My receptionists are so much happier now they don't have to deal with booking reps in anymore, they just give them the details and tell them to book themselves on line with Mediary. What a god send is what I say.

We have of course had reps in saying that they're not allowed to use it, or my company won't pay etc. But surprise, when I check the diary those who said they can't or won't actually have!!

In a lot of respects I would say that using this system has opened up a more agreeable form of communication between myself and the rep force in this area, as I or my staff can just SMS a rep/reps if I need information about anything in particular ie training etc, and I get a quicker response, which in turn must surely be advantageous to them.

So what can I say MEDIARY is the way to go, we get our lunch meetings and our evening appointments as and when we say; the nurses are more agreeable to seeing reps as its more controlled and no reps argue or wait around for hours just to be told NO! Other than a couple of hours training it’s no hassle all the way.

I would recommend it to any practice, and thank those reps and companies that have responded to my request to use the system as in this instance they really are saving me and others valuable time.

Amanda Sullivan
Practice Manager to two busy surgeries!

I would like to add my support to the provision of medical representative appointments through the services of Mediary. I have been using the service now for just under a year and have found it to be tremendously useful.

Due to the volume of medical representatives either presenting at the practice or telephoning for appointments, the partners were seriously considering stopping all lunch and ordinary appointments. However having seen the Mediary demonstration at the Practice Managers conference in Dunblane I was able to persuade them to give Mediary a try. The results were practically instantaneous; book openings are now a thing of the past, reps no longer outnumber patients in the waiting area, and there are fewer reps tying up the phone lines.

I have also used the messaging service available within Mediary and have had instant replies back from representatives contacted for various reason. Again I think this is a tremendous advantage for both the medical reps and myself.

Genevieve Hughes
Practice Manager

We have been part of Mediary for 2 years and have found it beneficial to our practice. It is a much more organised way of being able to offer Representatives appointments with the GP's. Mediary acts as a time saver for both the Practice and the Representative, as it allows the Representative access to our available appointments anywhere, anytime, online, therefore frees up much needed time for the Practice Manager to use elsewhere."

Morag Ward
Practice Manager.

We are very happy with the service that Mediary provide. We usually have a rep day in the practice at the beginning of October when all our rep appointments for the year are given out. This causes problems in the waiting room and car park. As we are now using Mediary we have no need for this and most of our appointments are now made online.

Myra Liddle
Practice Manager.

mediary has been, overall, one of the biggest steps to previously an uncovered side to the primary care system. Rep appointments have always just been something that has never changed and was whatever book or diary the practice could get their hands on. The mediary online rep diary has completely revolutionised the medical representative booking and tracking process. The internet option provided to the reps to book their own appointments has really made their lives easier as well due to staff time at practices being relieved as since the new GP contract the workloads of the practice staff has increased tremendously.

We have never considered stopping seeing reps as we feel that they are of great benefit to practices and for passing vital new information of products to GP’s and Nurses.

See you soon,

Ravi Shrivastiva, Practice Manager

And from Medical Representatives....

When I first heard about mediary I was really concerned that I may be blocked out of surgeries but one of my Practice Managers showed me how it works and I was very impressed. My name was already in the Representative Directory and I got an appointment as usual.

I also received a text message from a practice using mediary asking if I would like to sponsor some educational meetings which was great because they were key customers for me. I can now see why being able to book appointments on line would save me lots of time because standing in queues for book openings and spending a good part of my day trying to secure appointments is definitely not the best use of my time.

Dorothy Stuart, Senior Representative, Scotland .

mediary has made a huge difference and made my life easier, it’s a fantastic system. I have been chasing an appointment in a particular practice since last September and yesterday I got it through mediary!

Nikki Button Medical Representative.