Claremontand Holyport Practice Patient Group 2013 /14 Report.

Claremont Surgeryand Holyport Surgery formed Patient Groups in April 2011. Over the past three years the groups have met throughout the year to discuss surgery matters and devised three successful patient questionnaires.

As from April 2013 the surgeries are considered to be one practice, therefore, the patient groups have now merged and are known as Claremont and Holyport Patient Group. The meetings are held throughout the year at both surgeries and patient group members are welcome to attend any meeting at either surgery.

The group regularly contributes to the Holyport Village newsletter and have actively been involved in the ’Ageing Well’ campaign to inform patients about remaining young and active, healthy eating and exercise.

Patient group members have acted as a focus group and given feedback and suggestions around the new telephone system.

We welcome patients to join the Patient Group at anytime throughout the year. Please ask at reception if you are interested in becoming a Patient Group member.

Patients were invited to form a Patient Group that was representative of the surgery and reflected the practice population. The invitation to join the Group was widely advertised throughout the surgery in the following ways;

  • Posters in all of the waiting rooms and in the reception area
  • In the surgery practice booklet
  • Information in the new patient registration pack
  • Information on the surgery website
  • Information on repeat prescriptions slips
  • Information sheet handed out during consultations and at Clinics

To ensure that the Group is representative of the surgery patients, Group members were asked to complete a patient contact information sheet asking for specific data relating to sex, age, ethnicity, etc in order for the group to have a fair representation of the surgery.

The profile of the Patient Group is as follows;

Ethnic Groups:18 Males and 22 Females

31 x White British Group

1 x Black African

4 x British Asian

4 x Any other

Ages:

35 – 44 2 members

45 – 54 5 members

55 – 64 7 members

65 – 74 13 members

75 – 84 12 members

Over 84 1 member

The group described how often they came to the practice

17 Regularly

20 Occasionally

3 Very Rarely

During consultations, GP’s handed out information sheets about the patient Group aimed at under represented groups such as;

  • Young persons aged under 25 Male and Female
  • Females under the age of 45
  • Patients whose first spoken language is not English
  • Patients who are Carers
  • Infrequent attendees to the surgery in particular Males under 30
  • Patients with other Black or Chinese background ethnicity
  • Patients who are registered drug users.

The patient group is a fair reflection of the practice profile. We have a high percentage of older patients who have available time to commit to the group but we also have a spread of other age ranges.

Ethnic groups again are represented and the patient members vary in how often they visit the surgery.

Patient Questionnaire

One of the aims of the Patient Group was to devise a patient questionnaire so the group could gain an understanding of any concerns or issues that patients may have.

Patient group members were asked to think about what questions they would like to see included in the Patient Questionnaire. The group reviewed the 2012 / 13 questionnaire, the results and discussed areas of priority and concern that they felt should be included in the 2013 /14 questionnaire.

The Group were asked to consider the surgery as a whole, not just clinically. This included access to the surgery, the patient experience and the practice premises.

The Group indicated what the main concerns and issues they felt should be covered by the questionnaire. They also decided on what other areas the questionnaire should cover in order to gain the views of the whole surgery population for example, young patients to older patients, disabled, website users, repeat prescription users, etc.

They also looked at the format and style of questions, ease of understanding along with the areas covered by the questionnaire. They also decided to reduce the number of questions to ten.

The Group chose to have the last question on the questionnaire as a free text box. This would allow Patients to communicate their concerns freely with the group and would highlight any areas of concern or issues that the questionnaire failed to cover. As in previous questionnaires, the group felt this question was the most important one to ask as patients are able to freely write any comments.

The questionnaire was widely advertised throughout the surgery on posters in waiting rooms and in Reception stating that a paper version was available for patients to complete or that patients go to the surgery website and complete the questionnaire on line.

Staff actively encouraged patients to take a questionnaire and complete it whilst in the surgery and Clinicians encouraged patients to take the questionnaire.

The Chairperson of the Patient Group and patient group members met with patients at the Flu Clinics and handed out the questionnaire. This proved to be very successful and it was also an opportunity for the patient group to introduce themselves to the patient population.

A message was included on the repeat prescription slips promoting the questionnaire and its availability in surgery and on the website.

The questionnaire was made available to Patients in a paper version readily available from the reception desk and reception area. It was also available on the Surgery website for Patients to complete electronically.

The questionnaire was made available to patients from Mid October to December 23rd 2013.

Around 450 paper questionnaires were printed and taken from the Reception desk with 121 completed with 72 paper returns and 49 website returns.

Results of the Patient Questionnaire

All of the returned questionnaires were made available to the sub committee for perusal at the planned sub committee results meeting specifically for the collating of the results.

A results pack was produced for each patient group member showing the results and all of the patient comments. The results pack was distributed to the patient group to review before the meeting. The group meeting to discuss the findings of the questionnaire was held on Wednesday 5th March 2014.

The Group went through the results and comments and discussed the issues and concerns that the patient results indicated. They are as follows;

1) Appointments – Appointment availability and GP continuity

2) Trainingand customer service - Patient confidentiality.

3) Telephone system – problems with new system and answering the telephones.

8 out of 10 patients were extremely satisfied, very satisfied or satisfied with the surgery overall.

Overall, the Patient Group felt the questionnaire had a good response, was very positiveand the responses were very informative.

Action Plan

In response to the priorities identified in the questionnaire by the Patient Group, the Partners responded and an action plan was agreed with the Patient Group.

In response to the issues raised, the action points are as follows;

1) Appointments – Ability to see the same GP continuity

The practice is aware of the problems trying to book appointments at the surgery. We are actively trying to recruit a salaried GP although 5 other practices within 5 miles of us are also advertising. In the meantime we are using Locums that have worked at the practice before to increase the appointment availability for patients.

We are also hoping to increase the Nursing team with the addition of a Nurse Practitioner or Minor Illness Nurse. This will improve patient services and the appointments availability.

The practice is also introducing an online facility for ordering prescriptions and booking and cancelling of appointments. Patients register to use the facility and can request a password from Reception. Holyport Surgery will start week commencing 24th March 2014 and Claremont Surgery will follow in July/ August. The new online system will enable patients to book or cancel appointments online without the need to telephone the surgery. The system also sends the patient a text reminder.

Patients can come into the surgery and make an appointment in person at the Reception desk or you can make an appointment over the telephone 8.00am – 6.30pm Monday to Friday.

The surgery also offers additional appointments twicea week from 7.30am. You will routinely be offered one of the early morning appointments through the normal appointment booking system.

Appointments can be booked with any Doctor.

The opening times of the surgery are as follows;

Mon: 8.00am – 6.30pm

Tues:8.00am – 6.30pm

Weds 8.00am – 6.30pm

Thurs: 8.00am – 6.30pm

Fri: 8.00am – 6.30pm

2) Training and customer service - Patient confidentiality.

Patient confidentiality is of the upmost importance in the surgery and is taken very seriously. We will look into how we can improve patient confidentiality at the practice, particularly around the Reception areas. We had a glass partition box installed 2 years ago at Claremont to help with this problem.

The reception area at Holyport is much smaller and is situated closely to the waiting room area. We are aware of this and the implications this can cause with regard to patient confidentiality.

Staff will receive a reminder about patient confidentiality and we will look to revisit this in training.

The practice has taken all of the comments from the questionnaire into consideration. We want to have a streamlined service for our patients; this includes improving access to appointments at the practice and offering a welcoming, professional service from the administration teams.

3) Telephone system – problems with new system and answering the telephones

We had a new telephone system installed in October 2013 that enabled us to update the telephone system, equipment and return to a local number. To install a system that removed the 08444 meant not having the engaged tone. The new system will enable us to work in a different way and introduce a telephone hub at the practice.

The new telephone software system can produce a report of how many phone calls per hour we receive, how many ‘lost’ calls, call waiting times, call demand, etc, it also allows us to record telephone conversations if necessary.

We can use this information to ensure we have the correct levels of staff at the right time.

We have experienced a problem of patients getting ‘cut off’ when they are ‘on hold’. This was a software problem and has been remedied by a reinstallation of software.

Future Plans for the Patient Group

The Patient Group will continue to meet at regular intervals throughout the year and they invite patients to join the Group at any time. The Group will continue to work with the surgery, the Partners and the patients to improve the quality of services at Claremont and Holyport Practice.

If you are interested in joining the Patient Group you can speak to a Receptionist at the surgery.