After go-live

Test before you announce

Before you tell the whole reception team, spend 10 to 15 minutes testing with one or two people who will use it every day.

Pick 5 to 10 symptoms your team deals with often — for example sore throat, UTI in an adult, chest pain, rash in a child and back pain. For each one, check:

• Do the instructions make sense to a receptionist, not just a clinician?
• Do the appointment options match what is actually in your appointment book?
• Do highlighted phrases draw attention to the right things?
• Do the high-risk buttons cover the urgent symptoms you would expect?

Fix anything that looks wrong now. It is much quicker before the whole team relies on it.

Introduce it to your team

A short session of about 10 minutes is usually enough; you don’t need a formal training programme. Cover:

• how to find a symptom, using search and browse
• what the highlighted text means
• how to use the high-risk buttons
• who to tell if an instruction doesn’t look right

Don’t try to walk through every symptom in advance. Staff learn fastest by using the toolkit on real calls.

Point staff to the Staff guide, and print the Quick reference card for desks.

Keep reviewing

Clinical review carries on after setup. Until a switched-on card is approved, staff still see it, with a pending warning.

Return to review when:

• you or a colleague edits a card, which sends it back to Pending
• you run AI customisation again
• new or changed cards arrive from the shared library — the release notes announce changes
• a member of staff says a card doesn’t match how your practice works

Editing a card after go-live doesn’t put your practice back into setup. Surgery Health shows how many cards are waiting, with Review pending to open them. Keeping fewer than 10 pending is a healthy target.

For the review itself, see Working through the queue and Periodic review. For the governance side, see Clinical governance.

Keep instructions current

Check your cards when:

• your appointment model changes, such as new clinicians, new appointment types or retired services
• a local pathway changes, such as a new MSK referral route or a change to your duty doctor model
• staff tell you an instruction doesn’t match reality
• a symptom is being used differently from what the card suggests

For small wording changes, edit the card directly. See Cards.

Re-running AI customisation

If your practice answers or appointment model have changed a lot, you can run AI customisation again.

1. Update your answers with Edit practice profile on Surgery Health.
2. Choose Open AI Setup on Surgery Health and follow the same steps as during setup.

Cards that have already been reviewed — approved, with changes requested, or with reviewer notes — are left out unless you choose to include them. Rewritten cards get new wording and return to Pending; staff still see them, with the pending warning, until they are approved. See Generate your cards.

Monitor usage

Surgery Health shows active users and symptom views for the last 30 days. For more detail, open ☰ Menu›Practice settings›Analytics or the Engagement tab in Signposting settings. See Analytics and engagement.

Low use after go-live usually means staff haven’t been shown the toolkit, can’t find it easily or don’t trust it yet. A conversation with your reception lead usually brings out the reason.

Early on, it is normal for a few symptoms to get most of the views. Mention the toolkit in team meetings when relevant symptoms come up to encourage wider use.

Add more when you’re ready

Once the core cards are in use, you might add:

• AI suggested questions, if your practice has them — staff choose Get Questions to Ask on a card for prompts to gather information. They are generated on request, aren’t saved and aren’t clinically reviewed, so the card’s instructions come first. See Smart visuals and suggested questions.
• The Practice Handbook, if your practice has it — local contact numbers, internal procedures, common reception questions and induction material. Keep it current. See Practice Handbook.

Get help

If something isn’t working as expected, email contact@signpostingtool.co.uk.

Staff can report problems with a card using Suggest an improvement on the card. See Suggestions for how to handle them.