SUNNYSIDE SURGERY

Hawkins Road Penzance Cornwall TR18 4LT

Tel: 01736 363340 Fax: 01736 335116

Patient Participation Report – March 2014

This is the first report of Sunnyside’s Patient Participation Group (PPG) which formed in October 2013. The purpose of the report is to summarise our progress and endeavour to get patients more involved in their GP surgery. We will do this by meeting 3-4 times a year to discuss ‘hot topics’ related to surgery activity. We believe the group will be invaluable in acting as an interface between patients and the practice so that we can work together to proactively improve the services we provide and how we may evolve as a Practice in the future.

Practice Demographics

Sunnyside is an one of five established Practices in Penzance (population of 22000) and was opened in 1987. Sunnyside currently serve almost 6200 patients in West Penwith with a boundary extending approximately from St Ives to Germoe. Our area covers 2 of the most deprived wards in England and a further 4 which are in the top 20% of most deprived areas.

Age Range / No. of Patients / % of Practice Population
0-14y / 840 / 13.71
15-44y / 1861 / 30.37
45-64y / 1787 / 29.17
65-74y / 877 / 14.31
75-99y / 760 / 12.40
100+y / 2 / 0.03

48 % of the practice population is male and 52% female

We are situated very close to West Cornwall Hospital Urgent Care Centre and our GPs have previously provided care to in-patients at Poltair Hospital. We work very closely with two neighbouring Practices – Rosmellyn Surgery and The Alverton Practice.

The Practice has 4 GP Partners, 1 Minor Illness Nurse who can independently prescribe, 3 Practice Nurses, 2 Healthcare Assistant plus 11 other Administrative members of staff.

Profile of PPG Members

Sunnyside was one of only a few practices locally that did not previously have a PPG and this wasn’t for not doing our level best to engage patients. We have endeavoured since 2011 to establish a PPG and failed despite personally inviting people, posters around the surgery, leaflets in waiting rooms, notices on our website and setting up a virtual PPG. Previously, patients had shown an interest in joining the PPG but when invited to meetings where unable to come or to make any commitment. Wondering what approach to have next when and where we might be going wrong we advertised on the website and around the surgery, ‘An informal ‘ gathering at the surgery one lunchtime, to find out what a PPG was all about without making an commitment and again invited patients who had shown a previous interest. This worked well and on 23th October we held our first PPG meeting with 6 members attending and another on 15th January which attracted a further 3 new members. We were absolutely delighted with this progress. So our 9 members include patients 50y+ , patients 75y+, a patient with a child who has Learning Difficulties, a young person under 25, a carer and a patient with restricted mobility.

We continue to actively seeking new members, by including a PPG leaflet in our New Patient registration pack,via the website and by providing information within the Practice so we can have a PPG that is wholly representative of our Practice Population. We are hoping that publishing this report on the website will help patients understand a little more about what is involved and feel they want to join a PPG that is fully involved with the Practice.

We are fully aware that we are in the early stages of forming our PPG and learning the process of development as we move ahead, however we feel that the PPG has already provided us with an insight from a patient’s perspective, extremely useful input and advice that we have acted on and that there is real potential to use the group more in the future, as we enter a time of significant change.

Activity and Achievements

2013 has been a very difficult year for Sunnyside with, a full-time GP, on long term sick leave and subsequently having to fill consulting spaces with Locum GPs. Sunnyside is entering a time of significant change during 2014 with 3 GPs taking retirement – one at the end of January and 2 at the end of March. We felt it would be invaluable to gather the members ‘ opinions on the following points and the PPG fully agreed that these were important issues to discuss how they felt the year had gone so far with regards to

  • what had worked well
  • what hadn’t work so well
  • what improvements we could make to services/premises to enhance patient experience
  • How best to inform patients of the forthcoming changes within the partnership

Issues Raised / Members Response / Surgery Response and Actions Taken
What has worked well / Appointment numbers had been maintained and no one had experienced difficulty accessing a GP or Nurse
More availability with the Minor Illness Nurse
The staff had remained in high spirits, despite the circumstances and patients were always made to feel welcome / To continue to maintain our excellent appointment access that is appreciated by our patients and confirmed in the Patient Survey
Make a permanent change to increase the number of MIN clinics offered
To feedback this positive comment back to the staff
What hasn’t worked so well? / Although the appointment numbers were maintained, some members felt there was a lack of continuity of care especially as a number of different locums had been used over the previous 8 months / This was fully recognised by the surgery but it was felt that we had done the best job possible with the resources available at short notice. However now we are aware that IDC will not be returning to work – we have endeavoured to use the same locums regularly wherever possible.
Improvements to Services/Premises / It was felt that the surgery would benefit from a Disabled Access WC and Baby changing area
Possibility of securing 2 disabled parking spaces outside the surgery
Availability of online access to book appointments
Extended hours / Plans are already in place to convert the current Men’s WC to a Disabled Accessed WC with a baby-changing unit. The plans have been submitted to the Council for building regulations. Once passed the conversion work should begin in the spring. This is in line with CQC regulations also.
This has been looked into in the past and there was a £3300 fee payable to the council to put forward a Traffic Regulation Order with no guarantee that a space would be granted at the end of the Process. Although we would like to provide this funds were prohibitive.
This will be available from January 2014 in line with demand from the Practice Survey
Results of the survey were briefly discussed it was largely felt that with almost 80% of patients satisfied with opening times, no changes would be made at the current time. It was noted that patients would like the practice to be open at the Weekends and this may come as an NHS directive in the near future.
How to keep patients informed of the forthcoming changes in the Partnership / Members pointed out that when the last GP had retired they had not been informed by letter who their new GP would be.
Patients should have a choice of who they could register with.
Available Information regarding the new Doctors, and their clinical interests would be of value to patients / It was acknowledged that in hindsight, not informing patients of their new GP was a mistake and patients had been upset by this. The decision was made to handle the change more positively in future and write to patients informing them of their new GP.
Bulk transfer of patients was done on an alphabetical basis, purely for the ease of administration. However the letter sent out to patients would offer them the choice of registering with another GP in the Practice before the transfer took place.
This was felt to be a very good idea and the details will be published on the website at the same time as details of the new GP were sent out to patients

Patient Survey

The most recent Practice Survey was held in January 2013. The Results of this are published on our Website.

We plan to hold our next survey during June/July 2014 once the new Partners have settled in.

Practice Opening Hours

Monday 0830-1800

Tuesday0830-1800

Wednesday 0830-1800 Late Surgery 1830-2000

Thursday0830-1800 Late Surgery 1830-2000

Friday 0830-1800

The Practice closes between 1245-1400 on a Wednesday for Staff Training

Patients can telephone 01736 363340 to access services during call hours. Our phone calls are handled by an answering service between 1245-1400 on a Wednesday, who transfer the calls back to the surgery.

Previous patient surveys have shown that patients are satisfied with our opening hours and the uptake of appointments in the late surgeries is currently at 76.92. This was confirmed on discussion with the PPG, so no changes have been made. It was however noted that patients would like the surgery to be open at the weekend and it was felt that this We will, of course, take any future suggestions and trends regarding our opening times into account, once our next Practice Survey has been carried out.

Future of Sunnyside PPG

Even with all the unprecedented changes that Sunnyside had undergone during the past year, we have remained committed to providing our patients with an excellent health care service. It is well-known that Sunnyside was one of the surgeries committed to move to a new health Centre on the Bellair Site. Unfortunately this never came to be. However we are still fully engaged and committed to a project between the three Practices to seek out and provide our patients with premises which are built for purpose, modern, well equipped and easily accessible in West Penwith. We hope our patients will support us in this venture and our PPG will be engaged from the outset providing us with a ‘Patients’ Voice’