Our Communication Policy

Hornsby Family Medical Practice understands importance of communication with patients. The preferred
mode of communication is via telephone but there are other ways to contact us as listed below. We may
contact you via phone, email, SMS or post to contact you for any follow up requirements.

Telephone

Patients can contact the practice during opening hours.

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Our reception staff may use a triage system to assess the urgency of the patients’ needs and concerns.

Our reception staff will also ask questions to identify to ensure the correct patient is matched to the patient on the phone.

 

Please note, it is often not possible to speak to the doctor at the time of calling. A secure message will be sent to the doctor who will return your call when possible or arrange telephone consultation unless the matter is deemed to be urgent.

Email

An email is not a secure form of communication and is not encouraged by Hornsby Family Medical Practice.

 

If you do choose to contact the surgery via email, this is considered as patient consent for our staff
to reply via email.

 

Our staff will try to respond to email as soon as possible, however our policy is 1 business day turn around time.

For this reason, urgent issues should not be contacted via email.

SMS

The SMS messages are sent to remind patients of requirements for follow appointments, health reminders
and health recalls.

 

Please make sure you update the practice if there is a change to your mobile number.

 

Please let us know if you would like to be removed from the SMS list.

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Post

For patients whom cannot be contacted via telephone or SMS, a letter may be sent regarding reminders
or recalls.

 

When correspondence is received from other healthcare providers, it is directly imported into the patient’s file and then sent through to the doctor to review. This includes pathology and radiology results, emails and specialist letters.

 

If the addressed doctor is not available and the correspondence is urgent, another doctor in the practice will review and act, as necessary.
 

Any letters received by the practice are scanned into the patient chart and forwarded to the doctor to review.

Communicating with patients with special needs
A contact list of translator and interpreter services and services for patients with a disability is maintained,
updated regularly and readily available to all staff at reception. These include:
• National Relay Service (NRS) 1800 555 660
• Auslan services 1300 AUSLAN
• Translation and Interpreter Service (TIS) Doctors Priority Line 1300 131 450

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