ALRESFORD SUGERY - PATIENT FORUM

MEETING HELD ON

Tuesday 10th May 2011 at 2pm

NOTES OF MEETING

  1. Outcomes from last meeting

Hospital Transport: The Upper Itchen Voluntary Care Group which serves Beauworth, Bramdean, Cheriton, Kilmeston, Hinton Ampner and Tichborne are able to help with lifts to surgery or hospital appointments. Details of this group will be added to the surgery website.

  1. The Patient Forum – Increasing Representation.

Currently the date of the Forum is publicised via our monthly newsletter, website and posters both in the surgery and around the town of Alresford. The meeting discussed how representative groups could be best targeted and how to gain better access to groups not currently represented. It was suggested that the 7AS (Seven Alresford Schools) group would be a good way to obtain the views and opinions of teenagers and young adults. Links with the 7AS are already established and will be further developed. Sunbeams Children’s Centre is a very useful representation of young children and parents. Voluntary Care Group input should be positively sought further as they have regular contact outside the surgery with our older patients. An email group (or postal if appropriate) will be kept by the surgery for consultation.

  1. Identifying Problem Areas:

Is it possible to book appointments online? (This query from a member of Sunbeams Children’s Centre)

Our current IT system does not really allow this, however, we are in the initial stages of a process to change our internal systems which will give us the capability to allow a certain number of appointments to be booked online. We may also look to use SMS text messaging to send reminders for appointments.

Why is there not always music playing in the waiting room? Music is a good way to relax patients and allow for discreet conversation.

In order to be able to play most music or radio into the waiting room we have to pay a large performing rights fee. However we do have some CDs of music which are copyright free. We will remind our receptionists to switch the music on.

Members of Sunbeams Children’s Centre commented that they were pleased to see toys back in the waiting room (these were removed during the Swine Flu pandemic). Indeed, Sunbeams would like to offer to help stock the children’s bookshelf on a regular basis.

We are very grateful for this offer of help and will look at the children’s corner ourselves too to see how we can improve it.

Now that the weekly Health Visitor baby clinics have relocated from the surgery to Sunbeams Children’s Centre what is the best way for a parent to contact a doctor if advised to by the Health Visitor?

If a Health Visitor advises that a child should be seen by a doctor the best thing to do is to telephone the surgery and to explain to the receptionist that this advice has been given. The receptionist can then book a telephone consultation or a duty doctor appointment as appropriate. All doctors are happy to see babies and children and to offer reassurance to parents.

Domiciliary visits for blood tests are no longer undertaken by the phlebotomist. For some elderly and frail patients a visit to the surgery for a blood test can be very difficult. What should we do?

Unfortunately cuts in the phlebotomy service mean that Vanessa is no longer able to make domiciliary visits and we would urge anyone who can possibly get to the surgery or the hospital for their blood test to do so. However, the District Nurses are still able to visit the housebound. If the District Nurses are unable to visit and there are still problems in getting a patient to a blood test appointment please contact the Practice Manager and we will do everything we can to help.

After a stay in hospital is it possible to seek advice from services such as physiotherapy to aid recovery?

Unfortunately we do not have our own physiotherapist at the surgery. If appropriate, and particularly following orthopaedic surgery, the hospital will arrange some physiotherapy. As far as we know the therapy department does not offer telephone advice. However, there are a number of local private physiotherapists who may be able to help.

  1. Patient Survey

Later this year we will be conducting a patient survey. Please look out for this.

  1. NHS Reforms

While the Government is still pushing ahead with the NHS reforms they are listening to the views of GPs. We are still part of a local commissioning group and this group is likely to be forming a consortium with GPs in Eastleigh, Romsey, the New Forest and Andover. This group has a population of approximately 500,000 patients. The views and opinions of patients will be a vital part of commissioning.

  1. Date of Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Alresford Surgery Patient Forum will take place on Tuesday 11th October at 2pm.