Patient Participation Group:End of Year Report 2014/15

Summercroft Surgery

Practice Profile

Usual hours: Monday-Friday, 8.00am-6.30pm

All services are provided throughout the day.

Extended Access: Saturday 8.30am-11.30am

We offer commuter appointments with the GP and Nurse for routine matters.
There is no telephone service during this time, reception service is also limited.
There is no Duty Doctor available for urgent problems.
We do not have Saturday morning clinics on bank holiday weekends. Additional appointments are scheduled the weekend before or after to compensate.

Appointments can be made over the phone, in person at the front desk or online through EMIS Access.

As of March 2015 we have 11454 patients, 4 partners, 4 salaried GPs and 1 regular locum.

Introduction

The surgery has continued to meet with our Patient Participation Group (PPG) to discuss methods of maintaining and improving services which the surgery provide. We have 36 patients who have volunteered to be part of the PPG, 13 male and 23 female. The youngest volunteer is 33 and the eldest 92, however despite this excellent variety, the average and median age of the group is 70 which is not representative of our patient profile.

From this sample, 25 members (12 M and 13 F) have been active this year, corresponding with the surgery through email, and attending quarterly meetings which are held at the surgery out of working hours, alternating between Saturday mornings and week day evenings. We are looking to increase our PPG to make it more representative of our patient profile. The measures taken include: continued display via posters in our waiting area, advertising on our website, displaying information on the LED screen and ensuring the reception team are more proactive in discussing the PPG with patients who express an interest.

This report will demonstrate how the PPG works to facilitate the needs and concerns of the patients. Results from a patient satisfaction questionnaire have been analysed and the PPG have contributed towards an action plan to target highlighted issues.

Patient Satisfaction Survey

The PPG reviewed last year’s survey and agreed to focus on the same issues for our questionnaire this year.A few questions have been added this year in order to increase our understanding of patient behaviour, which will be able to offer guidance for an effective action plan towards achieving maximum patient satisfaction.

The areas of priority included:

Which services are used by patients and levels of satisfaction.
Whether patients felt involved in decisions about their care.
Satisfaction with the new appointment system.
Whether patients have a preferred GP and if so, how easily they are able to see this GP.
Satisfaction with the opening hours of the surgery
Ease of communicating with the surgery.
Whether clinicians and staff are helpful, caring and polite.
Improvements tothe waiting area.

Once the new questionnaire was created, we promoted and distributed hard copies at the front desk to patients who came into the surgery for any reason. The questionnaires were completed anonymously and put in a cardboard box on the front desk. Over a 2 week period we received 107 responses which were reported on a daily basis. We noticed that page 2 was being missed from the questionnaires, so made an extra effort to highlight the ‘PTO’ notice at the bottom of page 1. In total, 21 of the 107 respondents did not complete page 2 so the results of questions 10-19 are from a sample of 86 patients.

Results

The results from the patient satisfaction survey are presented below in chart formats. Questions 1-9 are from a sample of 107 patients, questions 10-19 are from a sample of 86 patients. Questions which were left blank are not included in the results.

1) Age range:

2) Gender:

3) Are you happy with the services provided at the Practice?

4) Comments:Sorted by trending categories.

5) Do you use the practice website?

6) Are you registered on EMIS Access?

7) Do your prescriptions go electronically to a pharmacy?

8) Are you satisfied with the services above?

9) Comments:Sorted by trending categories.

10) Do you feel involved in decisions made about your healthcare?

11) Are you satisfied with the appointments system?

12) Is there a particular GP you prefer to see?

13) If yes, do you normally get to see your preferred GP?

14) Are you satisfied with the opening hours of the practice?

15) How easy do you find it to communicate with the practice?

16) “My doctor is helpful, caring and polite”

17) “My nurse is helpful, caring and polite”

18) “Staff at the practice are helpful, caring and polite”

19) Do you have any suggestions for improvements in Reception or the Waiting Room? Sorted by trending categories.

Conclusion

The PPG met on Saturday 21st March to discuss the results of the Patient Satisfaction survey to configure an effective action plan to improve services.

Age and Gender

The results show that the age range of respondents is not fully representative to our patient population. Under 25s are to be expected to be underrepresented since many of these are children. We also discussed in the PPG how a larger proportion of respondents were over 65, and agreed that this is due to the questionnaire only being available to those who visit the surgery, who tend to be older. It was suggested that in the future we will try to spread the questionnaire more widely, using resources such as our website, emails and texts encouraging a range of patients to complete the questionnaire.We received feedback from roughly 1% of our patients, next year we would like to increase this to improve the reliability of our results. The gender of our respondents showed to be fully representative of our patient profile.

Are you happy with the services provided at the Practice?

The results from our questionnaire showed that 80% of respondents are happy with the services provided at the practice, which is encouraging. However, 29% of respondents left comments regarding dissatisfaction with the waiting time for appointments, which is currently 2 weeks for a routine appointment. Furthermore, 46% reported that they are dissatisfied with the appointment system. Currently we are unable to reduce this waiting time without it affecting our urgent appointment system, by which patients are guaranteed to see a doctor within 48 hours if they are acutely unwell. The only way to improve access to appointments as a whole is to reduce the number of patients who need an appointment with the doctor. Recently, the reception team have been putting more time into phone calls to help patients with problems that may not require a doctor’s appointment, and directing them to alternative services such as Pharmacists, Bromley Healthcare and the NHS Choices website. At the PPG meeting we discussed the possibility of using our nurses more widely for advice, to perhaps decrease the pressure on Doctor’s appointments.

The second most prevalent category of comments at 12% was positive feedback on the helpfulness of staff and clinicians, the urgent appointment system, and recent improvements to the surgery. However, we also hadan equal 12% of comments concerning the manner of receptionists, regarding them to be ‘intrusive’, ‘aggressive’ or otherwise ‘poor’. We discussed this at the PPG meeting, and an alternative phone message was suggested, in which patients are informed of what questions the receptionists will be asking and why. We ensure that our staff are provided with regular training. There are upcoming courses including ‘Effective Telephone Skills’, and ‘Conflict Resolution and Management’ that staff will be completing to guarantee all staff are at a professional standard when responding to telephone queries. Despite these individual comments, a total of 95% of respondents consider staff to be helpful, caring and polite.

Services used by patients and levels of satisfaction

According to our results;35% of respondents use the practice website, 36% are registered on EMIS Access, and 40% of prescriptions go electronically to a pharmacy. Of those applicable, 91% of respondents were satisfied with these services. We discussed these results at the PPG meeting, where it was highlighted that not all patients have access to a computer or are computer literate. This is an important issue to remember, andthe surgery will ensure that our services will never be limited to online access only. However, encouraging those patients who are able to use electronic systems to register on EMIS Access proves beneficial to the surgery and our patients as it can improve access to the car park and reduce waiting times on the phoneline. Electronic prescriptions do not demand any technological ability from the patients, though is beneficial to the surgery since it reduces prescription errors which, as a result, reduce the number of queries at the front desk or on the phone.This ensures that our resources are more readily available to those in need.

From our patient satisfaction questionnaire, 18% of those that are registered on EMIS Access left comments regarding the number of appointments available to book online. The surgery plans to increase the percentage of routine appointments available online to the recommended 20%. There were also comments on this section illustrating that some patients were not aware of these services, so we are looking into increasing patient awareness through posters and via our Reception staff.

Clinicians and staff

82% of respondents feel involved in decisions about their healthcare.
95% of respondents consider (strongly agree/agree) their doctorto be helpful, caring and polite.
100% of respondents consider their nurse to be helpful, caring and polite.
95% of respondents consider staff to be helpful, caring and polite.

Accessibility

Our results indicate that 86% of respondents are happy with the opening hours of the practice. It became apparent through the responses in our questionnaire that not all patients are aware of our opening hours, particularly our extended hours (Saturday mornings). The surgery is currently updating our website so that more specific opening hours are included. We will also be providing all new patients with a ‘Practice Leaflet’ after registering which will provide information regarding our opening hours. Copies of this leaflet willbe available at the front desk.

Approximately 68% report that it is‘very easy’ or ‘easy’ to communicate with the practice. We plan to improve the waiting time on the phone by encouraging patients to book appointments online.

Our questionnaire asked patients whether they have a preferred GP and if so, whether they normally get to see this GP. Results show that 42% of respondents are happy to see any GP; 20% have a preferred GP whom they normally get to see;and 38% have a preferred GP whom they do not normally get to see. Since our surgery has had a large turnover in doctors this year, a large burden has been placed on the remaining GPs. Patients who may require continuous care are encouraged to book appointments with some of our new GPs, whose appointments are more freely available. We discussed in our PPG meeting how incoming post is sorted; divided alphabetically between all doctors.

Improvements for the waiting area

The received a total of 17 suggestions regarding the waiting area. The majority of suggestions that no improvement was needed (24%). The next most prevalent suggestion was to remove the TV in the waiting area (12%). We discussed this in our PPG meeting and it was agreed that it would not be possible to remove the TV since it is necessary to mask confidential conversations and offer a distraction to patients in the waiting area, away from the front desk. However, it was suggested that we could use the TV as a communication and teaching aid for patients. We plan to look into NHS or educational videos which may prove beneficial to the surgery and our patients.

Action Plan

Highlighted Issue / Action Plan / Points for Consideration / Responsible person / Date for completion
Improve questionnaire next year / -Use website to encourage a wider range of patients to complete questionnaire.
-Distribute questionnaire earlier in the year. / JC / Jan 2016
Increase PPG / -Promote in surgery, on website / JC / Ongoing
Appointments / -Patients to use other services, if suitable.
-Use of Nurses / Nurse availability / -Reception
-Partners / Ongoing
Reception service / -New message on phone
-Ensure all receptionists training up to date / JC / Oct 2015
Appointments online / Increase % of appointments available online / Admin / May 2015
Online services / Increase patient awareness of online services including EMIS access and EPS / Posters, print outs, word of mouth. / All staff / On-going
Opening hours / Ensure patients aware of Saturday appointments / Update website, Practice leaflet / CD, CM, Reception / On-going
Communication with surgery / -Encourage patients to book online via EMIS Access
-Promote EPS to reduce prescription queries / Increase % appts online. / All staff / Ongoing
Ability to see preferred GP / Encourage patients to see new GPs for on-going problems / Reception, GPs. / On-going
Waiting area / TV / Consider educational videos? / Dec 2015