A NEW 24-hour telephone appointment booking system is being brought in across most of Barnsley's GP practices to improve access for more than 200,000 residents.
Barnsley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has funded the new system which is designed to improve patient access to GP practices and reduce the number of missed appointments.
The system, known as 'patient partner', is being installed at eight surgeries during the first phase of the project.
The service will then be rolled out across 22 more surgeries by the end of this year.
The system enables patients to book, check, cancel and rearrange an appointment 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without speaking to a receptionist.
The patient can then choose their preferred time as well as cancelling, amending or checking an appointment just by pressing a button on their touch tone telephone.
