Download THE WOODBERRY PRACTICE * PATIENT SURVEY 2008 / 09

THE WOODBERRY PRACTICE – PATIENT SURVEY 2012 / 13
Our Practice Survey was carried out by PatientDynamics which is an independent research
company specialising in patient experience. The following report is a review of the results of
this survey.
This survey report is based on the responses from a total of 378 (275 responses last year)
completed Questionnaires.
Patient responses to each question were rated and an average score was calculated, as
follows :
Excellent = 100; Very Good = 80; Good = 60; Fair = 40; Poor = 20; Very Poor = 0
The practice scores have been compared with benchmark scores for similar surveys carried
out amongst GP practices nationally.
SUMMARY OF PATIENT SURVEY
The overall practice survey results are very positive and show a notable improvement across
all indicators. Last year the practice achieved a score above the respective National
Benchmark score in only 3 of the 20 performance indicators. However, this year, the practice
achieved a score above the respective National Benchmark score in 15 of the 20
performance indicators. In the remaining 5 indicators, the respective scores were still an
improvement on last year’s scores. The patients’ overall satisfaction with the practice
improved from a score of 76 last year to 78 this year, although this score was slightly below
the National Benchmark score of 82. It should be noted, nevertheless that 87 % of patient
responses were Fairly satisfied to completely satisfied with the practice.
The best areas of performance were : (Practice Score rating / Benchmark)

Satisfaction with Opening Hours (70 / 63)

Satisfaction with availability of any doctor (71 / 67)

Satisfaction with Waiting Times (57 / 53)
Areas for Improvement were :

Satisfaction with availability of a particular GP

Satisfaction with Continuity of Care

Satisfaction with a doctor’s caring and concern
The most common open ended comments were :
Anything particularly good :



Very happy with the overall service.
Very good GPs
Receptionists and staff helpful and caring
Anything that could be improved :




Getting appointment with Doctor of choice
Appointments too long in advance to see doctor
Telephone access to surgery.
Premises need updating
Any other comments :
1. Improvements in access to routine and late evening appointments.
2. Difficulty seeing same doctor.
SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES AGREED TO ADDRESS PATIENT EXPERIENCE ISSUES :
It is pleasing to note that the actions taken to address the areas requiring improvement in last year’s
survey have resulted in an improvement in this year’s scores, in relation to the National Benchmark:




Availability of Particular GP
Waiting Times at Practice
Continuity of Care
Phoning through to GP for advice -
(2011 = 44 / 58)
(2011 = 50 / 53)
(2011 = 45 / 66)
(2011 = 53 / 56)
;
;
;
;
(2013 = 56 / 58)
(2013 = 57 / 53)
(2013 = 54 / 66)
(2013 = 58 / 56)
It is clear from the results of this year’s patient survey that securing routine appointments with a
doctor of choice and continuity of care are the most common concerns amongst patients. The
following plans have been proposed to address these and other issues:
APPOINTMENT SYSTEM
1. Minor Ailment Scheme – In an effort to improve access to GP appointments, this scheme
introduces a new pharmacy service which enables patients, who do not pay for their prescriptions,
to receive medical advice, treatment and medication for a specific list of common and minor
ailments, directly from a participating pharmacist without having to wait for a doctor’s
appointment. This category of patients have to collect a Minor Ailments “Passport” from the
practice which allows them to obtain, up to 10 free consultations with a participating pharmacist,
for treatment and advice on any of the specified minor ailments they may have or suffer in the
future. We shall be advertising this service to our patients with immediate effect.
2. GP Telephone Triage Training– All our doctors will attend formal training sessions on
Telephone Triage to ensure that they are able to obtain all appropriate information in order to
make a sound clinical judgement, during their telephone consultations.
3. Telephone Consultations – Our doctors are taking part in a new local enhanced service which
provides additional appointments for telephone consultations. These appointments are initiated by
the doctor who decides if the information contained in a hospital letter or result and any follow up
action can be dealt with over the telephone rather than asking the patient to make an
appointment.
4. Late evening appointments until 7.15pm (on Tuesdays and Wednesdays) and 8pm (on
Thursdays).
5. Early morning appointments commencing at 8.30am for GPs and 8.10am for Practice Nurse.
6. Increase in the number of appointments made available to book 24 hours in advance.
7. Reduce Appointment Wastage -The practice continues to target non attenders with letters, texts
and notices.
STAFF TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT
8. Practice Nurse Development – Our “new” Practice Nurse has now been in post for a year and is
now fully trained and developing her skills in triage, minor illness, cervical cytology screening, and
a broad range of chronic illness management. We strongly believe that these improvements to
our nursing personnel will compliment the services already offered by our doctors and will in turn
increase GP appointment availability.
9. Telephone call handling Training – All receptionists have attended a seminar for this training in
January 2013.
10. Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults – All staff and doctors have attended training in
this area in January 2013
11. Resignation of Dr Arjuna with effect from 27th April 2013 – Sadly Dr Arjuna will be leaving
us to take up a Partnership role in West London. We hope to replace him with another male
GP to address the male/female GP balance which is currently weighted towards our
current 5 female GPs.
12. Further development of our Health Care Assistant to support our Practice Nurses – our HCA
is now trained and experienced in general chronic disease management, smoking cessation and
administration of flu vaccine. She also undertakes a range of other general screening services for
DVT, cardiovascular disease and dementia. Her focus for development in the immediate future
will be on wound dressings. We hope that this will free our Practice Nurses further to focus on the
services mentioned above.
13. Staff Training - Staff continue to be trained, in house on a 6 weekly basis, on issues of how to
deal effectively with patients in terms of confidentiality, handling complaints and general customer
care
CONTINUITY OF CARE
The practice places high emphasis on Information and clinical governance. Work is already
underway to meet the objectives of the Information, Management & Technology Direct Enhanced
Service. We continue to raise our high standards in data quality by developing an accurately
coded, auditable and accessible patient clinical database.
14. From the results of the patient survey, it is important that our doctors provide reassurance to
patients that the quality of our clinical data is of a very high standard and that, when appropriate,
they have all the information, recorded on our clinical system, that they require to make their
clinical decision. This hopefully will reassure those patients who have not been successful in
obtaining an appointment with the doctor of their choice.
15. Medical Record summarisation level 95%. – The practice hopes to increase the percentage of
manual medical record summaries transferred onto the patients’ computer records to 96% by
2014.
16. 100% of medical records received for new patients to be summarised and transferred to
computer records within 8 weeks of receipt from the Primary Care Trust.
17. Clinical system computer software and hardware change – The practice will be undergoing a
major change over to a new clinical system in June 2013. The current supplier is no longer
developing its system and is not able to meet Department of Health Specifications for GP
Computing. We envisage that a great deal of time will need to be invested by all staff and doctors
in validation of clinical data transferred over to the new system and in training and management of
the new system. It is hoped that this will not impact significantly on patient care.
18. Comprehensive and consistent Coding of clinical information across the practice resulting in
an accurate patient health record data base; essential for producing informative reporting and
assisting in the achievement of Quality and Outcomes Standards, as defined by the Department
of Health.
19. GP to GP Electronic links - The practice intends to implement GP to GP electronic links in 2013.
This will allow timely patient clinical information held by the patient’s previous GP to become
available at the point of registration with our practice.
20. GP to Pharmacy Electronic Links- The practice has completed the first stage of Electronic
prescribing with the bar coding of prescriptions for use by pharmacists. It is hoped that by the end
of 2013, we shall be in a position of having direct electronic links with pharmacies. When linked,
Pharmacies will be able to manage repeat prescriptions for patients electronically. This will
eliminate the need for patients to put in requests for repeat prescriptions and then collect these
prescriptions from the practice to take to the pharmacy.
21. Improved and extended use of internal electronic messaging should improve
communications within the practice and result in a better response from the practice to patients’
enquiries.
TELEPHONE SYSTEM
22. Additional member of staff assisting with telephone calls and on Reception during our busiest
periods : Monday and Friday mornings – a new member of staff has been recruited and should be
able to undertake this responsibility in May 2013.
23. A patient self –check in system to be installed in May/June 2013, with a view to reducing queues
in reception.
QUALITY OF CONSULTATION
24. Consultation lengths to be reviewed to establish optimum value from consultation for both patient
and clinician.
25. Forthcoming GP Appraisals to identify communication skills as an area for further development.
26. GPs to give clear reasons for why they can only deal with one problem during their 10 minute
consultation. This will ensure that patients do not leave the consultation with the feeling of lack of
care.
PREMISES
27. An electronic display board, which displays important health information and shows the patient’s
name when they are being called by the doctor for their consultation, will be installed by July
2013.. This will certainly help those patients with hearing and language difficulties.
28. All window coverings in the surgery to be replaced by vertical blinds which do not collect dirt and
dust.
29. In preparation for our Care Quality Commission (CQC) Inspection from April 2013, a full premises
survey has been undertaken and recommendations for improvement will be acted upon.
30. Installation of clinical sinks that meet NHS specifications have been installed in all consulting
rooms with effect from February 2013.
31. A revised surgery cleaning contract that meets Health & Safety and Infection control measures
imposed by the CQC will be set up and put out to tender.
32. Further improvements to the flooring and ceiling in the waiting rooms and the flooring in the
consulting rooms will be considered.
OTHER SERVICES
33. An additional Phlebotomy clinic provided on Thursday mornings (8am to 10am) with a view to
extending the length of these sessions.
34. Dr Bluston intends to host a Carers evening to be held at a local community hall, where the profile
of our services and other services can be highlighted to patients and their carers.
35. The Practice is now a designated Yellow Fever Centre, where patients from any surgery can now
receive this important vaccine.
36. Our Health Care Assistant now provides Health Checks for healthy patients between the ages of
40 and 74. We hope to identify any patients, as early as possible, who may be at risk of
cardiovascular or hypertensive disease.
COMMUNICATION
37. The Practice has now adopted and is using a Mobile texting facility which it hopes to extend to
reminding patients of their appointment.
38. Patient mobile numbers are being collected for the above purpose and where possible, email
addresses are also being collected.
39. Leaflets explaining about the Patient Summary Care Record will be posted in the Waiting Rooms.
This explains that, unless they opt out, information about their medication, allergies, sensitivities
and medical history will be available to hospital doctors to access in the event of an emergency.