Burnham Health Centre

BURNHAM HEALTH CENTRE

PPG MEETING HELD ON

MINUTES

PRESENT

Roger Herbert – Practice Manager

Catherine Scofield – Reception Supervisor

Kim Allen – minute taker

The meeting was opened by Catherine Scofield thanking everyone from the PPG for attending and commenting on the fantastic turn out and introducing Roger the PM and Kim as our note taker for the evening.

Catherine started with the first subject on the agenda - the feedback from the August meeting and the new appointment system. It was explained that we fully accept and apologise as a practice that instead of the one ‘Big bang’ approach that we took in September 2012 to move over to more telephone consultations with the GP we take a more gentle approach to the changes we need to make. We are now easing the appointment system changes in gently offering patients the choice of either a telephone consultation or an appointment with the GP.

The reason behind the move to more telephone consultations were explained as follows:

• 35-40% of patients seen in clinic need to have a face to face with a GP
• 25-35% of the unnecessary appointments were prescription queries that could have been dealt with over the phone.
• 60% of our A & E attendances happen during our opening hours - of these a large proportion are referred back to the GP.
• During our ‘Big Bang’ the surgery was dealing with nearly 100 extra patients daily.
• Our ‘did not attend’ figures went from 260 a month to 12.
• Out of hours recorded a significant decrease in patients from Burnham Health Centre attending or calling for advice.

The question was raised over booking appointments with the same GP and why GPs can’t book follow up appointments?

It was explained that patients can ask to be seen by a doctor of their choice and will be offered an appointment if there is one available and that GPs do have the facility to book follow up appointments - up to 6 weeks ahead.

We had a question raised regarding A & E - a member of the PPG group discussed a family member being sent back and forth between the GP and A & E and not knowing the right thing to do in this situation.

Roger explained that Wexham Park Hospitals A & E department is under increased pressure with the closure of High Wycombe Hospitals A & E department.

Again, if we can get the telephone consultations and appointments system sorted this would reduce our patients attending the surgery unnecessarily and freeing up more time for the GPs to deal with patients issues arising day to day.

It was felt that patients have a lack of information about the commissioning group and would like to know more.

It was also mentioned by the group that we coped better in Dr Barrett’s time; there were 17000 patients and never a question of not coping.

Roger explained about the demand being put on the NHS as a whole and that the majority of GP surgeries are in the same position as us. Our practice population has only increased by 500 patients yet we now have 15 doctors were as Dr Barrett came as the 4th GP, we need to look at ways of making the surgery sustainable for the future.

As a practice we are now offering more clinics and services than ever before giving patients the appropriate care when they need it. We have minor operations carried out by 4 GPs and a cryo service run by the nurse team.

An issue was raised by a member of the group about offering evening appointments?

It was explained that we do offer an early morning session once a week from 7am – 8am, 1-2 evening clinics a week from 6.30pm-8pm and we are also open alternate Saturdays - all these appointments are pre-book able, can be booked 7 days ahead (in our experience appointments booked more than 7 days in advance often end up with patients not attending).

These clinics generate a further 230 appointments a month

The lack of knowledge within the group and those that took part in the survey about these appointments suggests further advertising of this service.

Roger also informed the group we have employed a pharmacist – Maria who is dealing with all long term prescriptions and reviewing patients with long term medication. She is also setting up a repeat prescription system where the patent can either pick up their scripts or have them delivered to a chemist of their choice. This should reduce patient enquiries on both the telephones and front desk. Our prescription clerk raises over 400 scripts per day and we receive 1200 scripts per month online.

Waiting time on the phones – we have recruited further staff at peak times to answer patients telephone calls and have reduced the waiting queue to 5 callers at our BT telephone network. This will mean your call will come through quicker to our staff.

The question was raised over splitting calls/GP appointments/nurse appointments /prescription queries/ test results and other queries, it was explained that this still requires a member of staff to handle these calls and it would not be practical to have 5+ separate lines with staff dedicated to answering them. We are also looking at patients booking an appointment on line in the near future.

Loop System

During the last meeting it was mentioned by one of the members that she had approached the practice on a number of occasions about getting a hearing aid loop system for the practice. In response to this we have invested in 3 portable hearing aid loops ther is one on the nurse reception, one on the main desk and one for patients needing one whilst in their consultation with either a doctor or nurse.

Answer phone

From the last meeting and the suggestion of an answer phone for patients to leave messages, this was taken to the GP’s for their feed back and it was felt that this would be inappropriate and could result in emergency matters being over looked.

Water Machine

A water dispenser was also mentioned at the last meeting but due to health and safety with the surgery having hard floors and the dangers of spillages and patients slipping we have decided not to look into this.

The group agreed with this action.

PPG Practice Visits

Again members of the group were invited to contact Catherine it they would like to spend some time behind the scenes to give them a better insight into how the practice runs.

SURVEY RESULTS

The survey results have been published on the website and copies were available at the meeting, following the disappointing response to the survey a number of the group have offered to help in getting patients to fill them in.

Practice action plan

• Better advertising of the extended hours service that we offer.
• Monitor the situation with the School parents using our car park and difficulties experienced by our patients.
• Moving the self check in screen nearer to the front doors to encourage patients to use it for both nurse and doctors appointments.
• Look into what causes the queue’s at the front desk.
• Further monitoring of the Did Not Attends and if reducing the ability to book more than 5 days in advance will help.