West Barnes Surgery
Background
In April 2011, the Department of Health published guidance on a new Patient
Participation Direct Enhanced Service (DES). The purpose of which is to ensure that
patients are involved in decisions about the range and quality of services provided by
their GP and over time, the services that are commissioned locally by the Clinical
Commissioning Groups that are being set up around the country.
In order to do this successfully, practices were asked to promote the
engagement of patients through the use of a Patient Reference Group (PRG) and
seek theviews of the patients through the use of practice surveys. The
results of this survey could then be shared with the wider practice population via the
practice website along with a summary of the agreed Action Plan.
Continuing the work of Patient Reference Group
As this Enhanced Service is now in its final year, we already have an established
Patient Reference Group.
Although all members of our practice population are welcome to join the PRG, which we have actively promoted it via our Practice website and through posters in the surgery waiting room, membership is fairly limited. It is not considered to be entirely representative of our practice population.
This is an obstacle that we have struggledto overcome. Membership of the group is entirely voluntary and we recognisethat our patients lead busy lives and have other commitments. We are lucky to have a small group of patients who take an active interestin the practice and its on-going development and their input is greatly valued. Our members also attend the Kingston wide PRG Network meetings which discusses borough wide issues.
Any patients who are interested in becoming part of the group are welcome to
Express their interest via the practice website or through enquiry at reception.
Update on Actions from Patient Survey 2012/13
Three actions were agreed as a result of the Patient Survey 2012/13, as follows;
1)Send Reception staff on Customer Service Training
2)Have Sanitizers available in the surgery.
3)Keep Survey focussed and more specific
4)Increase appointment availability.
The reception staff all went on customer service training session on 21st October 2013. It was an extremely successful event with staff coming back with positive feedback and feeling more motivated and aware of areas where they could improve.
The results can be seen in this year’s survey where there was a huge turnaround in patient satisfaction with customer service and reception staff.
Hand sanitizers have been fitted throughout the surgery as of June 2013 in response to request from patients.
Increasing capacity to meet patient demand is an on-going concern for the Practice. We are continuously looking at ways to meet patient demand. We have used more locums this year than before and have been lucky to have Registrars available throughout the year. This is an area that will require continuous monitoring.
Priority areas for Patient Survey 2013/14
The PRG met on 05th December2013 in order to discuss and decide on the new survey questionnaire for 2013/14 (See appendix 1 and appendix 2).
The patient survey was made shorter and more focussed than previous year. It was decided that the survey would concentrate on patient appointments and customer service. Both of these areas were highlighted for improvement in the previous survey.
Distributing the Survey
The survey was carried out for approximately six weeks between January 2014 and March 2013. It was distributed to patients who came into the surgery and also made available online on our website.
Survey Responses
We had 399 responses which given the number of patients coming in to the surgery over a 6 week period was less than we had hoped for. On a positive note this was an improvement from last year where we had 338 responses.
Patient Survey Results 2013/14
The PRG met to discuss the findings from the survey on the 20thMarch 2014 (see appendix 3 and 4).
There was an increased level of satisfaction in patient experience of using the surgery. A greater number of people were happier with appointment availability and the way Reception staff interacted with them.
Practice Action Plan
1. Consolidate on improvements.
2. Promote PRG open evenings
3. Look at increasing PRG membership with a wider patient representation.
Appendix 1
WEST BARNES SURGERY – PATIENT PARTICIPATION GROUP
Minutes of meeting held on 5th December 2013
1. Apologies for absence
Jan Smith and Dr Kitchen
2. Minutes of the last meeting and matters arising
All agreed as accurate. All matters arising to be dealt with later in the meeting.
3. Chair report
Howard Leigh has resigned from the group
4. Report from the NAPP meeting in November
Paul went to the meeting and reported back
NAPP Regional Event 20/11/2013 Crawley.
200 PPGs Invited. Some 16 Represented.
Approx 60% of Practices have PPGs.
Main Presentations -
1) 'Growing Healthy PPGs'
Good PPG Groups have
a) Clear Understanding of Purpose & Role of PPG.
b) Agree Terms of Reference with practice.
Suggestions and Discussion around attracting potential new members of PPG.
These includea)
Residential Care Homes - Heavy users of Practice
b) 6th Form Colleges - Potential Nurses/Doctors/Healthcare Workers - Look
good on CV.
To Be Discussed further at future meeting(s).
2) 'NHS England Perspective'
Potential Opportunities for PPGs
a) Revalidation of Doctors every 3/5 years. Part of Revalidation Process is
Patient Feedback - PPG involvement?
b) Primary Care Commissioning - General Practice.
Quality Surveillance Groups
Clinical Senate & Strategic Clinical Networks
Work is currently underway as to how PPGs can be involved.
5. Patient satisfaction survey
Questions chosen – see attached appendix
6. Newsletter
Final amendments made – Sam will ensure it is printed and distributed in the
practice once the partners have seen and agreed it.
7. Open evening
Holy Cross Church hall is booked for Thursday 13th February 2014 7 – 9pm.
We will probably have to provide tea and coffee for attendees. Publicity needs
to be at the practice and on the website. Possibly also the pharmacy?
8. AOB
PPG notices at the practice still have Howard’s details on so need to be
replaced.
Suggested that all new patients at the practice are asked for their email address
so they can be contacted using this in future.
9. Date of next meeting
7pm Thurs 23rd January
This meeting will be predominantly to review our terms of reference.
Appendix 2
Patient Survey Questions 2014
Q1) Think about the last time you tried to see a doctor fairly quickly. Were you able to see a doctor on the same day or in the next two weekdays that the surgery was open?
Yes
No
Can’t remember
Q2) If you weren’t able to be seen during the next 2 weekdays that the surgery was open why was that?
There weren’t any appts
Appt times offered didn’t suit
Appt was with a Dr I didn’t want to see
A nurse was free but I wanted to see a Dr
Another reason
Can’t remember
Q3) Last time you tried were you able to get an appointment with a Dr more than 2 weekdays in advance?
Yes
No
Can’t remember
Q4) If you weren’t able to be seen more than 2 weekdays in advance why was that?
There weren’t any appts
Appt times offered didn’t suit
Appt was with a Dr I didn’t want to see
A nurse was free but I wanted to see a Dr
Another reason
Can’t remember
Q5) Arriving at the surgery, how helpful did you find the receptionists?
Very
Fairly
Not very
Not at all
Not applicable
Q6) In general, how satisfied are you with the care you get at the surgery?
Very
Fairly
Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
Quite dissatisfied
Very dissatisfied
Q7) Would you recommend the surgery to someone who has just moved to your local area?
Yes
Might
Not sure
Probably not
Definitely not
Don’t know
Appendix 3
WEST BARNES SURGERY – PATIENT PARTICIPATION GROUP
Minutes of meeting held on 20th March 2014
Present Sara White (SW) Alison Markwell (AM) Paul Boynton (PB) Mike Dale (MD) Diana Boa (DB) Beryl Jessett (BJ) and Sam Uddin (SU)
- Apologies for absence
Dr S Kitchen
Beryl Jessett was welcomed as a new member.
- Minutes of the last meeting and matters arising
These were agreed as accurate. No matters arising not covered elsewhere.
- Chair and treasurer report
We have spent £40 on the NAPP membership fee and £64.58 running the Open Evening (£54 Hall hire and £10.58 on refreshments) AM offered to take over as Treasurer from now on.
SW went to a Kingston wide PPG meeting in February. It was only attended by representatives of 6 PPGs but was a useful meeting. The lay member of the Council of Members of the CCG had asked GPs to fill in a questionnaire to see how they feel they are engaging with patients. Patient groups have been asked the same questions and she will collate the results. There will be a group anonymised result published and the each surgery and PPG will see their individual results for comparison.
There was also a lot of discussion about what PPGs have done and examples were sought. SW let the group know about the Open Evening and the newsletter and has let the CCG have a copy of the newsletter. The CCG may give us some news for the next one.
The CCG may help open evenings to be held by clusters of practices – eg all the New Malden practices together.
- Open evening
This was deemed to be a success both by the patients and the GPs. See attachment for attendance. It was not a surprise that cross boundary issues (Sutton and Merton / Kingston) were brought up – this was suggested as a future topic for GPs to cover at another evening. The surgery’s appointment structure and the cost of missed appointments was also suggested.
The surgery is happy to fund an advertising budget for future evenings so notification could be put in The Guide, The Village Voice and the HolyCrossChurch magazine. As well as the list of possible topics suggested by patients, SU asked if sexual health could be included as a future topic. It was thought this might not be as successful as some other areas.
The next Open Evening will be held on 2nd October if the church hall is available and the GPs will be asked to find a speaker. We will ask people attending for their names and email addresses so that we can contact them more easily in future about other events. We will provide a feedback form to be passed around on the night.
- Patient Satisfaction Survey
There were 399 surveys filled in over a 6 week period. This was seen as very disappointing and thought to be due to the practice staff not handing them out to everyone who arrived in the surgery. It has been asked that next year there is a nominated member of staff to be in charge of handing out surveys to all in the waiting room. Also for GPs to have them on their desks to give at the end of a consultation. They could also be in a holder on the wall in the waiting rooms.
Going through the results showed that there have been improvements compared with last year. Ability to get an appointment within 2 days has improved from 37% to 74% and an appointment in advance from 31% to 56%. Reception staff customer service has improved from 31% finding them very helpful to 64% and the overall very and fairly helpful score has risen from 75% to 81%. More people are now happy to recommend the surgery to newcomers.
Age and employment statistics suggest that there may have been a bias in who received surveys as there were an unexpectedly low proportion of retired people who answered and proportionately few over 66s. This needs to be addressed when future surveys are handed out.
It would be a good idea to post the results up in the waiting rooms.
- Newsletter
The next edition will go out at the end of May. Articles to be
Resumé of survey
Resumé of open evening
PPG member profile
GP profile - Dr Iqbal
The cost of missed appointments
Coping with the heat
The deadline for articles to SW is 12th May.
- Increasing patient numbers
The practice needs a handout showing what services it provides. It could be useful for local estate agents to have copies of these to give to new home buyers. Maybe something similar could be downloaded from the website also.
- AOB
It might help if there was a board in the practice showing all the GPs and nurses and which days they were usually in to help people when scheduling appointments.
- Date of next meeting
7th August 2014, 7 pm
Appendix 4
West Barnes Surgery
Patient Survey 2013/2014
Excel Report(click here for full dataset)Number of Responses: 399
Patient Survey 2014
Think about the last time you tried to see a doctor fairly quickly. Were you able to see a doctor on the same day or in the next two weekdays that the surgery was open?
Yes74%
No19%
Can't Remember5%
No response2%
If you weren’t able to be seen during the next 2 weekdays that the surgery was open why was that?
There weren’t any appts14%
Appt times offered didn’t suit6%
Appt was with a Dr I didn’t want to see4%
A nurse was free but I wanted to see a Dr0%
Another reason1%
Can’t remember9%
No response66%
Last time you tried were you able to get an appointment with a Dr more than 2 weekdays in advance?
Yes56%
No26%
Can’t remember13%
No response5%
If you weren’t able to be seen more than 2 weekdays in advance why was that?
There weren’t any appts18%
Appt times offered didn’t suit4%
Appt was with a Dr I didn’t want to see4%
A nurse was free but I wanted to see a Dr0%
Another reason3%
Can’t remember11%
No response60%
Arriving at the surgery, how helpful did you find the receptionists?
Very64%
Fairly17%
Not very1%
Not at all4%
Used automated check-in12%
No response2%
In general, how satisfied are you with the care you get at the surgery?
Very59%
Fairly29%
Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied9%
Quite dissatisfied1%
Very dissatisfied0%
Would you recommend the surgery to someone who has just moved to your local area?
Yes71%
Might15%
Not sure9%
Probably not2%
Definitely not0%
Don’t know1%
What is your Age?
Are you Male or Female
Male45%
Female51%
No response4%
What is your ethnic background?
What is your employment status?
Full Time38%
Part Time23%
Unemployed8%
Student6%
Retired16%
No response9%
Are you disabled or consider yourself with a disability?
Yes8%
No86%
No response6%