Your Triage Appointment

Welcome to Croydon NHS Talking Therapies. You have a triage assessment appointment booked with us. We want you to know more about what this appointment means and what to expect.

What is a ‘triage’?

A triage is your first chance to tell us about how you are feeling and your difficulties. We would like to hear how they are impacting on you. We would also like to think with you about the type of support you may need. This may be support from our service, or another service that may be more able to help you.

A triage is meant to be a brief assessment of your main problem. It usually lasts 30 minutes and is not a full psychological assessment.

Triages are usually completed over the phone with one of our practitioners. If you have any communication difficulties or other reasons a phone appointment won’t be possible, please let us know.

What do I need to do beforehand?

We will send you a text reminder about the appointment the day before if you have given us permission. Please ask us as soon as possible if you don’t know the details of your appointment.

The day before we will send you an email with a link to some questions. These questions ask about how you have been feeling recently and about how your problems are affecting your life. Some of the questions also ask about situations you may be avoiding.

Please check your junk email folder as sometimes this email can be found there.

If you have not received the email, please download the questions and have the answers ready by clicking here. If you have difficulty accessing this document please contact us by telephone on 0203 228 4040 or by email at Croydonnhstalkingtherapies@slam.nhs.uk

If you do not complete these questions beforehand, your appointment may not go ahead.

Please take your time to consider what the questions are asking. It’s really important to get an accurate an idea of what you are experiencing. If you have any difficulties in answering the questions, please discuss this with your therapist at the start of the triage.

What do I need to do during the triage?

You need to be in a quiet, comfortable place where you can speak openly and confidentially. Ideally, this will be at home or another private place where you will not be distracted or disturbed.

Your therapist will guide you through the triage by asking various questions. All you need to do is answer in the best way you can at the time. Some of these questions will be about your feelings, your safety and the safety of others. We know this might be hard and you may not be used to discussing this information. That’s OK, your therapist will support you through it as best they can.

Important:

Your triage will be rebooked if you are driving or travelling on public transport.
Please be aware that we will be calling from a withheld number, so make sure you answer the call.
If we can’t get through we will leave a message if you have given us permission. We will then try calling again 5 minutes later. If we can’t get through that time we will have to assume you cannot attend the appointment. We will not be able to go ahead with the appointment if you call us back after 5 minutes. We may still be able to offer you another triage appointment that day, so please call us back as soon as you can.
If we cannot get through to you after the second attempt, we will send you a letter or email asking you to get in touch with us within 10 days. If we don’t hear back from you within this time we will have to assume you no longer wish to access our service and you will be discharged from our care.

What happens at the end of the triage?

Once you have discussed your difficulties with the practitioner, they will speak to a supervisor. This to get a second opinion about the most helpful support options for you.

The practitioner will then call you back. You can discuss these options and you can agree on the way forward together. This may be by going ahead with one of our treatment options, or we will help you access other services that may be more helpful for you. It really depends on what you want help with. We want to make sure you get the right support for your needs.

We will then send you a letter with what you and your practitioner agree. We will also send a copy to your GP, if you give us permission to do so.

Attendance policy

We have an attendance policy at Croydon NHS Talking Therapies to make the service fair for everyone. We know sometimes things might come up that may make it difficult to attend appointments. Please let us know beforehand if this happens so that we can rebook your triage for a better time.

If you do not attend your triage we will leave you a message to say that we have tried to call you. We will also send you a letter asking that you call us back within 7 days to rebook your triage. If we do not hear back from you we will assume that you no longer wish to access our support. You will be discharged from our care. You will also be discharged if you don’t attend two triages without cancelling beforehand.