Church Street Practice
CHURCH STREET PRACTICE
Key Priorities for 2015/16 – Reviewed September 2016 (V Millis)
Agreed with our “Critical Friends” (the Patient Reference Group - PRG) at our meeting on 5th March 2015
- Achieve the minimum rating of 85% that patients would recommend us to a friend / neighbour / family member (Friends & Family test - FFT)
For the period April 2015 – March 2016 from the 189 responses we received 79% extremely likely / likely to recommend; 5% neither likely / unlikely; 16% unlikely / extremely unlikely. In total we received 142 comments of which 75% were good and 25% not so good.
We are very pleased that the percentage results are going in the right direction and we are aiming to achieve 85% or more for the period April 2016 – March 2017. From April to August 2016 we are therefore delighted to report that 100% of patients are extremely likely / likely to recommend.
2. Improved Communication
a) Review communication received via FFT and general comments with PRG for discussion and suggestion for improvements as appropriate during the year – updated newsletter and placed on website with examples to date of comments
b) Carers (on going) – to continue with Mrs Crockford as the lead in this important area providing patients with up to date information and support as required; to improve the number of patients recorded as carers of dementia patients so we can improve on our bid to be more dementia friendly – Mrs Crockford has produced a report of her progress in this area to date. We invite all new patients to register for being a carer as well as advertise this on the website. We have increased the numbers to 263 (2%) but we are still a long way behind the national recognition that 10% of patients on a GP list are carers. We are in the process of setting up sign posting to better access social prescribing (Elmbridge Borough Council) where a GP “prescribes” with a patient’s consent non-medical support.
c) Investigate and introduce a new texting system – we have set up a new texting system sending reminders of appointments and invitations and can also send results, if we have the patient’s permission. We routinely ask patients for their mobile numbers.
d) Ensure new electronic prescribing system is working well with local pharmacists and communication to patients continues – further training has been given to staff and we have asked the trainer to visit local pharmacists with feedback.
e) Investigate and introduce increased use of email communication to patients to inform about our services - pending
3. Patient Access
f) Appointments – on going review and monitoring of appointment availability including extended hours; to include the on going review of the effectiveness and patient satisfaction of the duty doctor assessment service – the majority of comments via FFT are very positive about this area. We continue to offer routine appointments outside of our core hours which include Saturday mornings and extra early appointments on Monday and Thursday mornings instead of Monday evenings.
g) Use surveys to review and where appropriate improve services for specific patient groups – INR service has been reviewed with 79% satisfaction and we are in the process of repeating this survey.
h) To continue to review patients who fail to attend for their appointments and report on our findings – this is on-going but a detailed review was carried out after one week when many patients did not attend for their appointment to identify a trend i.e. long wait for the GP or a particular GP but nothing was found. However we are pleased to report that as we hoped the new texting system introduced early this year has improved our DNA rates.
i) Telephones – to review the possibility of installing a new telephone system during 2015/16 – we appreciate that patients find getting through on our switchboard very frustrating. This is a shared switchboard for the building and whilst we will work with Rowan Tree Practice it is unlikely we can make any changes this year due to the financial restraints within NHS premises and the pending organisational changes. We would encourage as many patients who are able to make routine appointments on-line – please ask at Reception.
j) Encourage increase use of on-line access (booking appointments, prescriptions and access to medical records) – this is advertised to all new patients, in newsletters and on our website and patient calling board (Jayex).
- Infection Control
To report on the continued cleanliness and safe environment within the Practice area and positively influence improvements to the whole building where possible – cleaning is the responsibility of Virgincare when they took over the community contract, which they then outsourced to a private company. Early in the year we had a period of unreliable cleaning which took up a lot of management time. Fortunately over the summer this went back to staff directly employed by Virgincare who used to work with us and they are fantastic – they understand health centre requirements and the high standards have returned. We have tidied up the reception area and made space for 2 extra work stations and put up pictures created by our retired nurse Mary Braddock – more examples of her work can be seen in the waiting room. We can also now add that during our CQC inspection in December 2015 where infection control is taken extremely seriously we achieved a rating of “GOOD”.