What this means for your practice
Prepare an approved routing response and a clear handover to the appropriate team. Keep public marketing conversations separate from individual service support.
An example to discuss with your team
Use a fictional comment about an appointment and rehearse the handover, including what happens when the receiving team is unavailable.
What to discuss with your agency
Rehearse a fictional comment with the usual receiving team unavailable. The public reply should be neutral and direct the person to your approved support route. Ask who checks that the handover was accepted. Counting the public reply as resolved would hide whether the person actually reached help.
Put the brief into practice
Prepare a small set of approved public responses for common situations that need a different route, such as appointment questions or individual service concerns. The wording should acknowledge the request without confirming or inviting personal details publicly. Agree the receiving team, contact route and fallback when that team is unavailable. The social manager should know what can be answered generally and what needs handing over, with an escalation route for uncertainty. Rehearse the complete journey using fictional comments, including a person who continues to post details after being directed elsewhere.
Follow your organisation's established process for handling that situation. Record the handover in approved systems with only the information needed. Review whether the receiving owner accepts responsibility; a public reply alone does not establish that support followed. Keep templates current when contact routes change so a well-intentioned response does not send someone to an unattended destination.
How to check the result
Measure time to route support requests correctly without counting public replies as completed resolutions.
Turn reading into a next step
Your action checklist
Work through these checks with your team or supplier. Tick the ones you have resolved and leave unknowns open.
Record what you know, what is still missing and the answer you need from your team or supplier.
Use project decisions only, without personal, patient or confidential details. Entries stay in this page and are not submitted to Kay & Co. Copy or download before leaving; this page does not save your notes.
Further reading
These sources provide background for the topic. The practice examples and checklist are illustrative planning suggestions from Kay & Co.
Related guides
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