Notes from Patient Forum Meeting 8.6.2016

Apologies for absence

Dr David Rogers

Sally Foskett

Merv and Jen Hinchcliffe

Joan Allen

Cancer Services – presented by Chloe Atkinson, West Essex Clinical Commissioning Group

Chloe gave a very interesting, and positive presentation, on the services provided by WECCG Cancer Care Group

Presentation attached

Comments from the Practice

Practice News

Good news first – Dr Hilland has safely delivered a son, and Dr Murali a daughter.

Staff

We have recruited two new Health Care Assistants - Penny and Charlotte - and we will have a Nurse Practitioner – Lisa - starting in August. We’re trying to ensure that the patient sees the most appropriate clinician for their problem, so this may mean that you won’t always be directed to a GP. All of our nurses are able to prescribe and so are able to deal with far more problems that many patients probably realise.

Our Nurse Practitioner will be able to deal with minor illness and will be the first person to see patients in many cases. Only if she feels the patient needs to see a GP will she redirect them to the Duty Doctor. We hope that patients will be supportive of this move as it will mean that patients will see the professional best equipped to deal with their problem.

We’re also advertising for additional support for the prescribing clerk and for additional receptionists.

Appointments

So……..we’ve listened to the grumbles and we are trialling two separate appointment systems over the summer to see which one works best for patients, staff and clinicians. One will run throughout July and the other throughout August. We’ll audit the results of each and see what the outcome is as to which one we continue with.

TV

We’re really sorry but we’ve had enormous problems finding the original contractors who set up the software on the TV screen. It’s taken hours of Chris’s time but we think we may be on the home stretch now. We had absolutely no idea it would be such a problem but, hopefully, we’ve tracked down the correct person. Once the current problem is resolved we’ll be able to trial the two versions of the presentation that Forum members worked on and see which one the patients prefer.

Shut Downs

We’re closed tomorrow afternoon for a Protected Learning time event. All West Essex surgeries are closed from 1.00pm to allow GPs and Nurses to attend. The out-of-hours service and 111 will be available for patients. We’ll open again tomorrow at 8.00am as usual. The dates of all future shutdowns are on the website but for those who don’t use a computer they’re13th July 2016, 14th September 2016 and 1st November 2016.

Patient complaints

As with all practices, I’ve had to report to NHSE and WECCG on our complaints

We had a total of 10 written complaints last year between 1.4.2015 and 31.3.2016

Six were medical – a lost result, a prescription not done, an issue with how swabs were taken, a patient was unhappy with an injection site, an issue with an ENT referral , change of medication not put on computer.

Four were general administration - cost of private fees, unable to get an appointment with Dr Yaqub, the time that the doors were opened of a morning, and our process for dealing with controlled drugs.

There were seven verbal complaints

Three were medical – four were non-clinical e.g. length of time it took to see Dr Phipps, and another for being asked not to park on yellow lines.

There were eight email complaints

Three were medical and five were non-clinical – again mainly about not being able to see the GP of their choice or pre-book appointments.

Unfortunately, the complaints were often about locums that we have used. Obviously, we don’t use them again if a patient has been unhappy.

AOB

  • Arthur reported that there is now a domiciliary eye test service for those patients who are unable to get to an opticians
  • Ongar is part of a trial to send a first responder, first-aider from the Fire Department, to someone having a heart attack if there is no ambulance in Ongar. An ambulance will still be sent in parallel but the first responder will start CPR until the ambulance arrives.
  • Essex and Herts now has an air ambulance operating from North Weald.
  • Arthur apologised for there being no reminder in the Ongar News of this evening’s meeting. Dates of meetings for the remainder of the year are 7th September 2016 and 7th December 2016.

Date and time of next meeting – 7th September 2016

Ongar Patient Forum minutes – 8.6.2016