Silverdale Patient Participation Meeting
3rd March 2014 17.30 – 18.45
Common Room
Present:
Dr I Ballin – GP (IB)
Andrea Simpson – Practice Manager (AS)
Jackie Rivers – Deputy Practice Manager (JR)
Ms Melanie Madden (MM) - Chair
Mr James Gartley (JG) – vice chair
Ms Charlotte Seddon (CS)
Ms Doreen Yates (DY)
Ms Lesley Curran (LC)
Apologies:
Mrs Lilian Simpson (LS)
Mr Brian Roberts (BR)
Mr Peter Pritchard (PP)
Mr James Edwards (JE)
Ms Shirley Hill (SH)
Speakers:
Steve Jones – Healthy community collaborative
Minutes:
Jackie Rivers
Item / / ActionMM thanked everyone for attending and had a brief introduction of people.
1) / Steve Jones – Healthy Community Collaborative
Steve informed the group that his team are working to engage and increase awareness of the NHS Health Checks and Cancers.This is being commissioned by Public Health and has a 2-year funding.
The NHS health checks are available to both male and female patients 40 – 74 years of age who have no other significant illnesses and they are concentrating on patients over 50 years of age to raise awareness of different types of cancers. Steve and his team are working in the local communities to recruit volunteers to become involved and are visiting GP practices and trying to engage with patients.
Phase 1 was only covering the east of Salford and phase 2 is now being rolled out over the rest of Salford.
Volunteers would be supported and trained to be involved in the project and there is a launch event on Friday 7th March 12.30pm at St. Thomas’s Church. With the 1st learning workshop being held on 13th March.
Steve has said he will send in updates for the group.
Steve informed the group that they are going to be out and about in the community, advertising on billboards etc to raise awareness.
The team thanked Steve for his time this evening.
2) / Previous Minutes – matters arising
The minutes were agreed as correct.
MM & JG thanked AS for spending time with them recently.
Signage – Mr Brian Roberts mentioned at the time of sending his apologies that the room signage in the health centre is much better.
MM has been in the practice to help with the patient questionnaire and found it very beneficial for the patients. The practice found it very difficult this year to get the questionnaire completed. 500 were handed out with only 150 returned. AS sent text messages to patients who we hold mobile numbers for to advertise the questionnaire on the website. We then received more responses and finally had 302 returns. Consider asking the pharmacy if they would display some next year for patients to complete whilst waiting for medications to be dispensed.
MM would like more help if possible next year from anyone with spare time to spend time with the patients and help them with things such as self-check in training, patient questionnaires etc.
The group and practice would like to thank Melanie for her hard work and time spent at the practice.
3) / 2014 Questionnaire
Finally received 302 returns on this years questionnaire and the results were as the practice predicted.
AS informed the group of the new services that are happening at Silverdale. Telephone Triage and a new phone system.
AS mentioned that we need to agree 3 areas where we need to concentrate on as a result of the questionnaire responses.
The percentages are based on Excellent and Good responses:-
Q1) Asked which Dr the patient usually sees.
Q2) How well do you rate your experiences with our receptionists? – 87%
Q3) How do you rate the teams ability to treat patients with dignity and respect? 94%
Q4) How do you rate the wait to be seen by a receptionist at the reception desk? 74%
Q5) How well do you rate the existing opening hours? 84%
Q6) How do you rate the practice premises / environment? 89%
Q7) How well do you feel confidentiality is maintained in our reception and waiting area? 76%
Q8) How well do you rate the availability of a specific doctor? 53%
Q9) How well to you rate the availability of ANY doctor? 77%
Q10) How do you rate the waiting time at the practice for your consultation to begin?
Q11) How do you rate the ability to get through on the telephone? 52%
Q12) How well do you rate the ability to speak to a doctor on the phone for advice? 55%
Q13) How well does the doctor listen to what you have to say? 91%
Q14) How satisfied are you with how thoroughly the GP investigated your symptoms? 89%
Q15) How well does the doctor make you feel at ease during your consultation? 93%
Q16) How well do you feel you are involved in decision about your healthcare? 88%
Q17) How well does the doctor explain your problem and/or treatment? 90%
Q18) How well do you rate the doctors care and concern? 92%
Q19) How well do you think you can cope after your visit to the surgery? 88%
Q20) How well do you rate our ability to gain consent before any examination, care treatment or support is given? 90%
Q21) Have you complained about our service? If so, how do you rate our ability to deal with your complaint? 73%
Q22) All things considered, how satisfied are you with the practice? 86%
Comments to results
Q4) Patients would benefit from training on the self-check in screens – this could be provided by members of the PPG. It was suggested that the screens be moved into the reception area or foyer but it was felt that they would be more subject to vandalism or cause more congestion in the reception area.
Q8) patients prefer to see the same doctor that they are used to seeing and will wait for appointments with them. As some doctors only do 4 surgeries per week this can cause appointments to booked up weeks in advance.
Q10) We expected this to be low. Some patients arrive long before their appointment and add this onto their waiting time. The waiting time is the time from when their appointment is booked for to when they are called to the consultation room.
Doctors work at different speeds and emergencies in clinic such as waiting for ambulances, emergency visits etc can also cause long delays.
The practice have now put up a white board in the waiting room for any over running information to be written up to keep patients informed. This needs to be removed once caught up.
Q11) AS had a meeting with the communications engineer and the practice have agreed to fund the new software of the call queuing system. This will tell patients where they are in the queue but will charge patients for the call at less than a local rate call. AS has asked for this to be set up ASAP. If this is not effective then we will look into a ‘leader board software’ this will show staff how many calls are waiting at the busiest times so more staff can be drafted in if necessary. This is a much more expensive option. The practice feel that the current telephone system is a catalyst for complaints and hope that if we can sort out the phone lines then this may decrease the number of complaint that we receive. The practice is also having a separate line for prescriptions only. This will be advertised on the TV, website, text messages nad on the prescriptions once confirmed.
Q12) Telephone triage to be on the next patient questionnaire.
We had a good representation of patients who completed the questionnaire.
The comments were discussed.
Wheelchair access was a comment made and that the practice has already attempted to discuss this with estates but have had no reply. PPG to draft letter to the estates department. MM and AS to meet and discuss. AS did inform the group that the centre of the reception desk has been made DDA compliant.
Reception staff, phones and the continuity of care were the main trends.
Action points
Telephones – look at ASAP when new software installed and this will be monitored as to its effectiveness.
Disability access to some clinical rooms – MM and AS to look into letter from the PPG to estates as soon as possible highlighting that it is not acceptable for the Practice Nurse to be in a room which is not accessible to wheelchairs. This letter and the progress to also be reported back to DY.
Consultation times – to be looked at after April and presented to the GP’s to ascertain why patients are waiting longer for some GP’s and nurses but not for other.
MM has asked the group if they have the time to assist with these actions.
Telephones will be assisted by JG
Wheelchair access will be assisted by MM and DY
Consultation times will be assisted by LC and CS
AS will complete the report on this meeting and submit to NHS England for the Enhanced Services requirement.
4) / Telephone Triage
This is currently a pilot in the practice and is being trialled on a Monday and a Friday. Patients who call for appointments are called back by a GP at the practice as some patient queries can be dealt with over the telephone and will save the patient a trip to the practice. Patients who the GP’s deem to warrant an appointment will be offered one the same day of within the next couple of days if necessary.
We are trialling this as patient demand has vastly increased in the last 12 months as it has across the whole of healthcare, especially in Salford and the practice needs to find a solution to try to contain this as much as possible as there it to be no new money coming into the practice from April and the doctors need to practice in a safe and effective way. Urgent appointments mean different things to different patients and the minority do not use these appropriately.
The reception staff are to start asking patients for a brief outline of symptoms to assist the GP’s in assessing the urgency of the call.
Patients can decline to give details if it is of a sensitive nature.
Questionnaires will be sent to the patients who have used the service to evaluate the effectiveness and the patient views of this new service. After this we can then decide to roll it out over the rest of the week or discontinue it completely.
JG asked Dr Ballin if medication could be prescribed over the telephone if the symptoms have reoccurred and the patient has been seen by a GP for this recently. Dr Ballin has said that GP’s triage differently at the moment and so some GP’s will and some won’t. The partners are discussing this at the next Partner meeting to hopefully come to a standardised decision.
It was suggested that some elderly patients would not be as truthful over the telephone as they would be face to face. Dr Ballin replied by saying that as the appointment would be patient initiated and the triage doctor has a full copy of the patient record, this shouldn’t be an issue but if the doctor felt in any way unsure the patient would be seen face to face.
The PPG were slightly split as to the new triage service but are wiling to give it a trial period before making a final judgement.
5) / CQC Safeguarding unit
The safeguarding unit are a team who deal with children and adults who are vulnerable to abuse - children or adults that are subject to physical or emotional neglect/abuse, and adults or children subject to domestic violence.
This unit are having a CQC visit on Thursday and they will be looking into 8 children cases. This means that they are to visit GP practices where these children are registered to ensure that the correct and accurate information is communicated and also that the practice are aware of their role in recording and acting upon this information.
The practices CQC visit has not yet been arranged but the practice is continually working towards this. The rooms have been risk assessed and shelves have been removed, chairs are to be replaced with wipeable seating. A CQC compliant phlebotomy chair has been purchased and the medical bed has been removed form the blood clinic room.
Estates have been contacted regarding the chairs in the waiting room as they are dirty and not well maintained. Jackie Rivers to contact Estates to ask if the cleaners are able to clean the chairs and also secure some chairs which are thought to be a little loose.
6) / A.O.B
Nurses
Nurses are not currently on the questionnaires – should they have their own or combined onto the GP one. Group feel that they should be added onto the GP questionnaire.
Opening Hours
The extended hours cannot be advertised as they are not static hours and can change from week to week. Sometimes they are held during the week nad sometimes they are at the weekend. The extended opening are advertised with the comment to ‘please ask reception for future dates and information’
Patient Samples
Some patients hand in samples to reception and are embarrassed to do this. It was suggested to give out sample envelopes to patients to put in themselves. AS commented that the blood envelopes are see through and the hospital will not accept and covered samples. Group accepted this.
Learning Disabilities
Leslie works with the LD team and has asked if she can bring to the practice the ‘Waterside Toolkit’ to see if it could be used by clinicians. AS welcomed this and said it could very well be beneficial to both parties.
Next meeting to be arranged and the date distributed to participants