LITTLEMOOR SURGERY

PATIENT PARTICIPATION GROUP REPORT 2013

Produced for the Patient Participation Directed Enhanced Service 2011-2013

Introduction

Little Moor Surgery is a medium sized busy practice with over 5000 registered patients. The purpose of the Patient Participation Group (PPG) is to ensure that our patients are involved in decisions aboutthe range and quality of the services provided. Thisincludes patients being involved in decisions that lead to changes to the services the Practiceprovides or commissions, either directly or indirectly. Thefollowing report details the ongoing development of our Patient Reference Group (PRG) and theresults of our most recent patient survey, together with agreed new practice developments.

  1. Process used to recruit to our PPG

The Practice started to recruit members for its PPG in August 2011and has continued through 2012/13.The Practice wanted to use the resources within Practice to have a discussion with all staff and GP’s as to how we would best keep the PPG moving forward and enabling us to make a difference, to create a truly representative group of individuals. We have strived to comply with Equality and Diversity legislation. We identified valuable resources in recruiting ‘hard‐to‐reach’ groups suchas our regular contacts with: Health Visitors, Midwives, Local Chemist.

Recruitment methods used included the following:

  • Practice postersWebsite invitations – via Practice website
  • Practice Newsletter
  • Specific invitations generated by identification of patients
  • Direct by talking to patients in the waiting room and attending ‘flu clinics’
  • Invitationsat new patient registration

The PPG members are contacted by email or letter.

  1. Profile of PPG

We acknowledge that despite our best efforts, our group is under‐representative of those aged under 16 and 85 plus.Our ethnic minoritygroups have increased slightly. This has arisen due to the encouragement of patients when registering at the practice. We propose to further develop our PPG to include a more diverse population and still utilise other members of the primary health care team.

  1. Agreement of Priority Areas

The Practice developed the Practice Survey and asked the members of our PPG to help us identify priority issues they felt should be included in the local Practice survey, areas for the practice to review. We have continued to build on their suggestions and have created a new survey after consultation with our PPG group, looking at areas identified for 2012/13

  1. Practice Survey

The Practice ran a survey that focused on the areas identified by the PPG. The priority areas identified were Appointment Availability, Telephones & Prescriptions.We utilised many of the question formats of the GP- Patient Survey 2011/12 commissioned by the Department of Health, as we wanted to use well validated and tested questions.

The survey was sent to all PPG members by post and to a random selection of patients from the emis clinical computer system we use. Reception staff also engaged as many patients as possible in completing the questionnaires.

See attached results appendix 1

  1. PPG Survey Results and Action Plan

The survey was analysed and a proposed Action Plan was produced and sent to all PPG group members for consideration.

We asked the group for their comments and suggestions and provided them with the opportunity to make changes to the draft action plan if they wished to.

We only received 1 response from our PPG and they where happy with plan.

The main actions agreed were:

  • TELEPHONES
  • APPOINTMENTS
  • PRESCRIPTIONS

See attached full plan appendix 2

  1. Practice Opening Times

Reception is open for face to face contact from 7.30- 19.00 Mondays and Tuesday - Friday from 7.30-18.30,excluding Bank Holidays. The telephone service is available from 8.00-18.30 Monday - Friday.

Out of Hours (Mastercall) cover calls from 18.30-08.00 hours weekdays, weekends and Bank Holidays.

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  1. Extended Opening Hours

The practice currently provides additional opening under the Extended Hours (DES) and these run 7.30-08.00 and every 2nd Saturday of the month from 8.30 a.m. – 11.30am.

Appendix 2

Little Moor Surgery

Patient Representative Group

Action Plan 2012-2013

TELEPHONES

You said…

91% of patients who completed our survey were satisfied with contacting the Practice.

81% of patients who completed our survey thought the receptionists polite and courteous when answering the telephone.

84% of patients who completed our survey said the receptionists where helpful in directing their calls through to the correct person.

81% of patients who completed our survey said their telephone call was answered in a timely manner.

We Propose..

We have had good feedback on the service offered, but need to improve on the time taken to answer the phone to patients. We did look at this last year and the improvements have been reflected in this year’s Survey. We have set a goal of answering the phone within 5 rings to keep improving on our service .

APPOINTMENTS

You said…

Since the introduction of nurse triage, 81% said they had been able to get an urgent appointment when needed. The response was poor to this question and after the changes we will re-survey.

How long do you have to wait to get a routine appointment? 55 people said 1 week and 34 said over 1 week. The response was poor to this question and after the changes we will re survey.

25 people said that a 1 day wait was acceptable to make a routine appointment,12 said 2 days and 6 said 3 days, plusthe response was poor to this question and after the changes we will re- survey.

98% said they where willing to see any of our GPs

The PPG wanted to ask,”If a child was in distress in the waiting room , are you prepared to have your pre-booked appointment delayed in order for the child to be seen quickly?” 88% said yes

We propose ..

We have now increased our bookable appointments for GPs to 3 weeks in advance, to help patients but will need to monitor the DNA rates for this. We will also release more staged appointments allowing people to book in for the following day and also look at releasing some of our Newly appointed Nurse Practitioner appointments that could be pre-booked for certain conditions.

PRESCRIPTIONS

You said…

24% of patientshad problems in collecting their prescriptions form the reception desk.Patients were aware of the different types of items on a prescription. 26% of patients were not aware that prescriptions do take 48 hours to produce. Patients were aware that GPs need to do a review on medication prescribed.

The comments ranged from; the product prescribed was out of stock at the Pharmacy and lack of communication with the Pharmacist.

We propose to arrange meeting with the local Pharmacies to address patients’ concerns and to improve communication with the Pharmacy. We will work in conjunction with the Pharmacies to produce a mini-survey to monitor improvements and address any concerns that patients have. We will also improve patients’awareness with posters and our Newsletter that prescriptions do take 48 hours to produce. Thisshould also result in the reduction of problems that patients encounter when they collect their prescriptions.

Appendix 1

LITTLE MOOR SURGERY

Little Moor Surgery Patient Questionnaire Results 2012-2013

Please find below summary of results from Patient Questionnaire campaign

Total number of respondents: 245

245 completed paper copies in practice or returned by post

Notes:

In most cases tables will show both number of respondents and percentage of responses.

Not all questions were answered.

Getting an appointment

Telephones

No. of responses / % total of response
Is it easy to contact the surgery on the telephone? / 225 / 91%
Are the receptionists polite and courteous when answering the telephone? / 200 / 81%
Are the receptionists helpful in directing your call through to the correct person? / 205 / 84%
Is your telephone call answered in a timely manner? / 198 / 81%

Appointments

No. of responses / % total of response
Since the introduction of nurse triage have you ever been unable to get an urgent appointment when you needed one? / 198 / 81%
In your experience, how long do you usually have to wait to get a routine appointment? / 1 week / 2 weeks / 3 weeks / 4 weeks / 32%
55 / 27 / 7 / 0
In your opinion how long is it acceptable to wait for a routine appointment / 1 day / 2 days / 3 days / 4 days / 4+ days / 15%
25 / 12 / 3 / 2 / 1
How many weeks in advance would you like to book an appointment with the GP?(nurses can be booked 2 months in advance) / 1 week / 2 weeks / 3 weeks / 4 weeks / 81%
80 / 46 / 35 / 37
Are you willing to see any of our GPs in order to be seen in an earlier appointment? / 203 / 83%
Yes
200 / No
3
If a child was in distress in the waiting room, are you prepared to have your pre-booked appointment delayed in order for the child to be seen quickly? / 210 / 86%
Yes
185 / No
25

Prescriptions

No. of responses / % total of response
Have you ever had a problem collecting prescriptions at the surgery? / 165 / 67%
Yes
40 / No
125
Are you aware of the different types of items that may be on your prescription? / 131 / 53%
Yes
115 / No
16
Do you know that the practice requires a minimum of 2 working days (48 hours) to prepare a repeat prescription? / 155 / 63%
Yes
115 / No
40
Are you aware that in order to keep receiving some repeat prescriptions your GP will have to see you periodically for a medication review? / 133 / 54%
Yes
115 / 18
Do you read the messages on prescriptions? / 123 / 50%
Yes
118 / No
5
Have you ever had a problem with a prescription at the pharmacy? / 107 / 43%
Yes
9 / No
98
If yes, please comment on the problem / Comments ranged from; product out of stock/prescription not at Pharmacy/busy Pharmacist/lack of communication with Pharmacist

Q15. Ethnic background

No. of responses / % total of response
White-British / 117 / 48%
White-Irish / 16 / 6%
White – Other background / 22 / 8%
Black – Caribbean / 0 / 0
Black – African / 6 / 2%
Black – Other background / 5 / 2%
Asian – Indian / 2 / 1%
Asian – Pakistani / 20 / 8%
Asian – Bangladeshi / 0 / 0
Asian – Other background / 6 / 2%
Mixed Race – White & Black African / 4 / 2%
Mixed Race – White & Black Caribbean / 6 / 2%
Mixed Race – White & Black Asian / 2 / 1%
Mixed Race – Other background / 4 / 2%
Chinese / 2 / 1%
Gypsy/Traveller / 0 / 0
Any other background / 3 / 1%
Do not wish to declare / 30 / 12%