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1.3. How to check staff levels for answering telephones

There are an estimated 300 million consultations taking place each year in practices across England. The vast majority will involve at least one telephone call to book the appointment – but many will involve a number of calls.
This results in a vast number of telephone calls that have to be handled by receptionists.

Patients expect their calls to be answered and dealt with efficiently. For safety reasons, it is important that the small number of patients who ring with an urgent need are answered promptly and appropriately. This section describes how to count the call demand in your Practice and then to calculate how many people need to be allocated to answering the telephone to meet demand. It is based a standard formula devised by the Danish mathematician Agner Krarup Erlang (an expert in telephone systems). 

Tips

To do the calculation you will need the following information:

  • the number of incoming calls each hour;
  • the average length of the incoming calls (including any ‘wrap-up time’ before being ready for the next call); and
  • the service level to be delivered (expressed, for example, as 90% of calls to be answered in 30 seconds).

The formula assumes that the receptionist will be dedicated to answering the phone and will respond to the next call as soon as they are able.

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