Shared email inboxes that all emails to the surgery are sent to (e.g. patient queries, forms filled out on our websites). These inboxes are used by all members of staff that need to access emails sent to the surgery (e.g. Clinical Admin, Reception, Pharmacists).
How to access the surgery inbox
- Open your NHSMail email inbox
- Click your name at the top right of the screen and select ’Open another mailbox’
- Type the name of the mailbox you want to view in the search bar. The generic surgery inbox email addresses for all of our sites can be found here: Our Sites
- Select the correct mailbox and click Open and the mailbox will open in another tab on your internet browser
Folder structure
Every site has the same basic folder structure:
- Each team has a folder that contains emails that need action (the Team Folders).
- Reception have multiple Team Folders → the general ‘Reception’ folder, as well as folders specifically for ‘Registrations’ and ‘Sick Notes’.
Holding areas
Some Team Folders also have a ‘Holding Area’ sub-folder for items that need further information or can’t be actioned immediately.
- Please try to keep the number of emails in the ‘Holding Area’ folders to a minimum!
- Do not use the ‘Holding Area’ for emails that you could action, but don’t have time for. These should stay in your team folder so your colleagues can action them.
- Check the ‘Holding Area’ regularly and chase up replies/further info as needed.
Completed items
There is a shared ‘Completed Items’ folder to be used by all teams.
- Emails in the this folder will be archived by the IT team when they are more than 1 month old. Archived emails can be retrieved by the IT team if necessary.
- Emails in any folder other than ‘Completed Items’ will not be moved/archived.
Automatic rules
The IT team have added rules to the generic surgery inboxes to automatically move incoming emails to the relevant Team Folder or sub-folder. For example, any email that we receive that contains the keywords “sick note” will be automatically picked up by a rule and moved to the ‘Sick Notes’ folder.
Adding or removing existing folders can break these rules, which is why we ask you not to do this yourself — please get in touch with the IT team instead!