The Croft Patient Experience Report2015

The Croft Medical Centre

2 Glen Road

Oadby

Leicester

LE2 4PE

Tel: 0116 2711740

Fax: 0116 2729529

March 2015

David Swanson – Associate Practice Manager

In conjunction with The Croft PPG

Contents

Background Information

Setting up the PPG

Agreed action points following the 2013/14 survey

Developing the survey for 2014/15

Survey Results

Discussion of the Survey Results

Action Plan

The Copyright in this work is vested in The Croft Medical Centre and the document is issued in confidence for the express purpose for which it is supplied. It must not be used for any other purpose without prior written consent from The Croft Medical Centre.

Background Information

The Croft Medical Centre is located on the main A6 (Glen Road) in Oadby, located next to the Sainsbury’s petrol station and across the dual-carriageway from the Oadby Owl pub.

The building itself was purpose built in 1998 and the Practice team strive to offer a high quality service to all of its 8300 patients.

The Practice is open Monday – Thursday 7:30am-6:30pm and on a Friday 8:00am-6:30pm. It is closed for an hour each day for lunch between 12:30pm-1:30pm.

The Practice team is made up of 6 General Practitioners, 3 Practice Nurses and 2 Healthcare Assistants, supported by a 12 strong administrative team. As a teaching and training Practice, the Partners aid the development of several GP Registrars and Foundation Year doctors annually.

Practice Demographics

The Practice has a high elderly population and an increasing mix of ethnic diversity. There are slightly more females than males registered at the Practice.

On-line Facilities

Patients have been able to choose to book appointments and order repeat medication via our on-line services since we changed computer systems toSystmone in October 2011. Appointments can still be booked in the usual way, directly at reception or via the telephone. Repeat medication requests can also be left at reception.

By the end of March 2015, patients will be able to choose to look at their Summary care record (Repeat Medication, Acute Medication, allergies and adverse reactions) online.

Setting up the Croft PPG

The group was established in August 2009 and was set up prior to the Patient Participation Scheme Directed Enhanced Service being introduced in 2011. The group is affiliated to the National Association of Patient Participation (

The Practice advertised for a cross section of patients to join our PPG including:-

Male/Female representation
Ethnic representation
Working patients
Patients with young children
Working parents
Retired patients
Patients with a chronic illness
Patients who are carers
Patients who fall into the 16-25 age group

Patients were asked to complete a standardised questionnaire which asked which category they would represent and why they would like to join the group.

Overall, there were 100 applications which were initially split into the relevant categories. All categories, at this point, were covered, apart from the 16-25 age group. All patients who had expressed an interest were contacted to confirm that they still wished to join the group. They were also advised of the process going forward. It was felt that this was the fairest way of setting up the group.

The first meeting took place in August 2009. All 9 of the patient representatives attended the first meeting. The Practice was represented by Bridget Capell – Managing Partner, Dr Richard Dalby – General Practitioner (Partner), Dr Louise McCole – General Practitioner (Partner), Nicola Bingham – Practice Secretary and Ann Swanson – Receptionist. The initial remit of the group was… “to enable us to have shared communication and feedback; to provide and promote high quality services that meet the needs of our service users, whilst keeping within the restraints of NHS resources and regulations….”.

Since the first meeting in 2009, the group have met on 29 occasions on the following dates:-

2009 / 2010 / 2011 / 2012 / 2013 / 2014 / 2015
August 12th / January 11th / January 24th / January 23rd / January 23rd / January 22nd / February 10th
October 13th / April 19th / April 4th / March 19th / March 20th / March 19th
July 12th / July 4th / May 21st / May 22nd / May 21st
October 4th / September 19th / July 16th / July 21st / September 10th
December 5th / September 25th / September 22nd / November 26th
November 21st / November 20th

The group also meet independently, between official meetings, to discuss and develop the practice newsletter. These are produced on a regular basis, generally following a meeting. The group met up late last year, at one representative’s house to put together a draft of this year’s survey.

One clinical partner attends each meeting on a rotation basis. At least one member of the management team attends every meeting.

Ground rules of the Group:-

The meeting is not a forum for individual complaints and single issues
We advocate open and honest communication and challenge between individuals
We will be flexible, listen and ask for help and support one another
Silence indicates agreement – speak up, but always go through the chair
All views are valid and will be listened to
No mobile phones or other disruptions
We will start and finish on time and stick to the agenda

All new members of the Group are made aware of the rules prior to them joining.

The Group have their own nominated Chairperson – Meredith Wilson. The minute taker used to be taken in turn by each member from meeting to meeting, however in early 2014 the Group appointed John Baker as Secretaryto take minutes at each meeting. The agenda is determined by the Group, with the Practice having a regular section which incorporates local and national issues and any forthcoming events.

The Group is constantly changing and evolving. Members of the Group interview prospective representatives without the involvement of the practice. This gives the Group autonomy and self-direction.

The Group is currently represented by the following patients (and represent the followingcategory(ies) :-

Meredith Wilson – Chair (Chronic illness/Retired)

Vas Darji – (Retired, medical issues)

MikeshKotak – (Working parent)

Sarah Reynolds – (Working, chronic illness)

Gillian Patterson – (Working parent)

Rosemary Gray – (Retired, carer)

John Henwood – (Retired, disabled)

Chris Smith (Working)

Angela Hefford -(Retired, diasabled)

John Baker - Secretary

Previous members include: Daphne Fitton-Brown, RajinderLall, Emma Angel, Pippa Gascoigne, Sue Marshall, TasneemDhanji, KeiraSpriggs, John Baker

The PPG has its own section on the Practice website and patients are able to email the group directly at Patients can also post their comments and suggestions internally at the Practice via the PPG suggestions box.

The Group produce regular newsletters, one for each quarter of the year, which are available to read electronically via the Practice website, or in paper format at the Practice.

The PPG has their own notice board within the Practice. This is used to display any information that the Group feels is relevant for patients. Photographs of the PPG members along with copies of the current newsletter are located next to the notice board.

Further information is also available on the Practice website

Agreed action points following the 2013/2014 survey

The agreed action points following last year’s survey were:-

1)Increase the Awareness of the PPG:

2)Improve Readership of the Newsletter

3)Review the Appointment System

4)Training for Practice Staff

5)Privacy Area in Reception

6)Review the Children’s Corner

7)Increase the involvement in the Practice by under 45’s

1)To increase awareness of the PPG it was deemed the easiest and most sensible way to do this would be in the Practice itself. The Group were given a notice board to display what they wish. One member of the Group kindly assisted in taking photographs of the PPG members so a new photoboard could be placed next to the notice board.

Also installed was a Perspex A4 leaflet holder so that newsletters were more prominently displayed, rather than just on the reception desk. A member of the Reception staff was assigned to make sure that this holder always contained newsletters and that there were enough printed in general.

2)One of the new features on the updated website was the option to have a mailing list. It was decided that this mailing list should be put on the website so that patients could sign up to it. When a newsletter is published it is sent electronically to all patients that have signed up. At the time of writing this is currently at 70 patients.

Notices are put both on the Jayex display board and also the website to inform patients of a new newsletter being available to read.

3)The Appointment System was looked at as a whole by the Partners following the survey in 2013/2014. It was deemed that the system itself was not the problem but indeed access. Following the comments made and investigation it was felt that patients who only used the phone to book appointments, mainly the elderly, were at a disadvantage.Therefore the appointments for the following day were split 50-50 with some appointments “protected” for patients who were ringing in for appointments. The remainder of appointments were kept for both internet and phone booking as normal.

As a continuous method of making sure there are enough appointments, a regular item was added to the monthly Practice Meeting agenda. Appointment availability analysis takes place to ensure that there are enough appointments on a week by week basis, based on the Practice list size. If for any week, this is not met then additional Partner sessions and/or locum sessions are booked.

4)Training session periods called PLT’s (Protective Learning Time) have been set up by the East Leicestershire and Rutland Clinical Commissioning Group (ELRCCG) which are organised for GP’s, Nurses, Health Care Assistants, Practice Managers and Reception staff to attend. These cover a variety of topics and have been useful in the development of all members of staff. Some of these training sessions take place in-house and allow the Practice to choose the subject matter and some are at an external venue with the topics already decided.

5)Creating a Privacy area was looked at, however it was deemed that there was not enough space in the waiting room to incorporate one. It was agreed that if a patient needed to speak to a receptionist more privately that a consulting room would be offered so that they could speak to the receptionist.

6)With Infection Control a priority here at the surgery there was a limit of what could be done with the Children’s Corner. Materials such as posters have been bought and donated to the Practice but have not yet been displayed. This action point is still in progress.

7)The uses of Twitter was explored to help interact with younger patients and to inform them of important information at the surgery. However, due to issues at the Practice, this had to be unfortunately be put on hold a short while after it had been started.

The Practice increased its use of text messages messaging by sending text messages when deemed appropriate to. This meant we could contact patients, without having to ring them whilst they were at work, for example. This continues to be looked at, to see how the Practice can utilise this to the best extent for both patients and the Practice.

Developing the Survey for 2014/2015

The Group met independently in November 2014 to discuss the formation of the Practice survey and to draw up a draft so that it could be discussed at the next meeting. The previous survey was used as a template to create the new survey as the 2013/14 survey was successful and would allow easy comparison between the two surveys. The main alteration was the addition of a section regarding the recently introduced ‘walk-in’ blood service and a development in asking patients what areas they felt the urgent appointment system was successful or needed improvement in.

Comment boxes were added for certain sections, to focus on observations patients had made regarding those areas.

Following agreement from both the PPG and the Partners on a final survey, it was announced that the final version was ready for completion in the surgery on the 6th January 2015. It was available for completion online a week later. It was advertised both online and on the Jayex display board in the Reception area. The survey ran for 8 weeks and closed on 6th March 2015.

Survey Results

Croft Patient Participation Group

Patient Survey 2014/15

Section 1: The Patient Participation Group

a)Are you aware of the group, and its purpose?

AnswerCount Percentage

Yes99 85.3

No8 6.9

Not Sure9 7.8

b)Do you read the Newsletter?

AnswerCount Percentage

Yes71 68.9

No26 25.2

Not Sure6 5.8

c)Do you find it useful?

AnswerCount Percentage

Yes6369.2

No88.8

Not Sure2022

Section 2: The Appointment System

Urgent Appointments

Each day one doctor will be on duty. They will respond to all calls from those who feel they must have attention that day.

a)Have you used the urgent appointment system? IF NO, GO TO 2d

AnswerCount Percentage

Yes64 57.7

No46 41.4

Not sure10.9

If YES, what do you think of the current appointment system for urgent appointments?

b)Response time?

AnswerCount Percentage

Excellent20 31.7

Good34 54

Fair6 9.5

Poor2 3.2

Very Poor1 1.6

c)Medical Advice?

AnswerCount Percentage

Excellent3151.7

Good2338.3

Fair58.3

Poor00

Very Poor11.7

Routine Appointments

d)What do you think of the current appointment system for routine appointments?

AnswerCount Percentage

Excellent54.4

Good3430.1

Fair4237.2

Poor2421.2

Very Poor87.1

e)What is your preferred method of making appointments?

AnswerCount Percentage

Internet43 37.1

Phone5547.4

In Person2319.8

f)Have you had any difficulty getting through on the phone?

AnswerCount Percentage

Yes73 65.2

No37 33

Not Sure2 1.8

g)Are you aware that you can also book appointments on-line?IF NO GO TO SECTION 3

AnswerCount Percentage

Yes107 93.9

No4 3.5

Not Sure3 2.6

h)Have you had any difficulty using on-line booking?

AnswerCount Percentage

Yes44 50.6

No36 41.4

Not Sure7 8

Section 3: The Blood Test Service

a)Are you aware that there is now a ‘walk-in’ service?

AnswerCount Percentage

Yes100 88.5

No11 9.7

Not Sure2 1.8

b)Have you used it? IF NO, GO TO SECTION 4

AnswerCount Percentage

Yes72 72

No27 27

Not Sure1 1

c)What do you think of the new Blood Test System?

AnswerCount Percentage

Excellent2736

Good3648

Fair1013.3

Poor00

Very Poor22.7

Section 4: Clinical Staff

a)How would you rate the doctor during your* last visit? (*You, your child or the person you care for)

AnswerCount Percentage

Excellent61 54

Good32 28.3

Fair12 10.6

Poor8 7.1

Very Poor0 0

Not Applicable 0 0

b)How would you rate the nurse during your* last visit? (*You, your child or the person you care for)

AnswerCount Percentage

Excellent66 57.9

Good32 28.1

Fair5 4.4

Poor2 1.8

Very Poor0 0

Not Applicable 9 7.9

Section 5: Reception Staff – communicating with the Croft on the phone or in person.

How would you rate the reception staff last time you spoke to them?

AnswerCount Percentage

Excellent68 59.1

Good34 29.6

Fair9 7.8

Poor3 2.6

Very Poor1 0.9

Section 6: The Premises

How would you rate the premises last time you were at the surgery?

AnswerCount Percentage

Excellent4841.7

Good5951.3

Fair76.1

Poor10.9

Very Poor00

Section 7: Your experience with The Croft

In general, how would you rate the quality of service you would receive from The Croft Surgery?

AnswerCount Percentage

Excellent53 46.1

Good50 43.5

Fair8 7

Poor4 3.5

Very Poor0 0

Croft Patient Survey Equality Monitoring Form

To help us analyse the results, it would be extremely helpful if you would complete the following Equality Monitoring Form. The information you provide will be kept confidential and will help us to identify if any groups of people are experiencing any particular problems.

Are you Male or Female?

AnswerCount Percentage

Male44 40.4

Female65 59.6

Transgender0 0

How old are you?

AnswerCount Percentage

18-242 1.8

25-341 0.9

35-448 7.2

45-5412 10.8

55-6415 13.5

65-7442 37.8

75-8425 22.5

85+6 5.4

Which ethnic group do you belong to?

AnswerCount Percentage

White 83 76.1

Mixed2 1.8

Black/Black British1 0.9

Asian/Asian British22 20.2

Chinese1 0.9

Other0 0

Would you say that English was your first language?

AnswerCount Percentage

Yes103 96.3

No4 3.7

Overall, how good or bad would you say your health is?

AnswerCount Percentage

Very Good14 12.7

Good57 51.8

Fair33 30

Poor6 5.5

Very Poor0 0

Do you have any of the following conditions?

AnswerCount Percentage

Deafness or severe hearing impairment11 13.3

Blindness or severe vision impairment0 0

A condition that substantially limits your

ability to carry out basic activities*15 18.1

A learning condition1 1.2

A long-standing psychological or emotional

condition4 4.8

Any other long-standing illness31 37.3

No long-standing illness21 25.3

*e.g. walking, climbing stairs, lifting or carrying

How many children aged under 16 are living at home with you?

AnswerCount Percentage

None88 85.4

One10 9.7

Two5 4.9

Three0 0

Four or more0 0

Do you have care responsibilities for anyone with ongoing health problems or a disability?

AnswerCount Percentage

Yes14 13.3

No91 86.7

Is your accommodation:

AnswerCount Percentage

Owner-occupied/mortgaged?96 93.2

Rented or other arrangements?7 6.8

Which of the following best describes you?

AnswerCount Percentage

Employed (full time, including self-employed)19 17

Employed (part-time, including self-employed)8 7.1

Unemployed and looking for work0 0

In full time education1 0.9

Unable to work due to sickness or disability3 2.7

Looking after you home/family6 5.4

Retired from paid work75 67

Along with the above survey questions, the Practice also asked patients to include any additional comments, suggestions, concerns or praise regarding: the urgent appointment system, the routine appointment system, the ‘walk-in’ blood service and any general comments regarding their experiences at the Practice.

These comments have not been corrected for spelling mistakes or altered in any way. Any comments with staff names in them have been anonymised. Comments that were inappropriate, i.e. personal comments made against individuals have been removed as such comments should be made via the Practice complaints procedure. Any comments with staff names in them have been anonymised.

Patient Comments on the Urgent Appointment System

A lot junior doctors.
A very good idea
b)answered fair reluctantly, as there was obviously a lot of people in queue
Confusing! Told I had to phone for appt. for next day – then – later in day when I rang unwell was told to come in!
Depends who is on duty
Excellent Receptionist
I had to phone about a stmach upset. I got no appointment but Dr Anwar gave advice and suggested I buy medication.
I would like the old system – being able to come in the morning with no appointments
If I need an urgent appointment I need it straight away. I do not wish to have to explain my symptoms to a receptionist then have to wait for someone to call me back and then wait for an appointment. It takes longer to be seen now if the problem is urgent.
Interestingly, when I saw the doctor, he stated, I wish I had known earlier, we could have fitted you in much earlier!
Knowing that it is almost impossible to get to see a Dr at The Croft, when myself or any members need an urgent appointment we always go to the Walk-In Centre in Oadby. I don’t even try to make an appointment at The Croft. Staff at the Walk-In are friendly, helpful and we can always rely on being seen by a Dr or Snr Nurse on the day. We can go along in the evenings, after work, which for me is important as my employer frowns upon me taking any time off work – and I have to make up my time before/after appointments, which makes my life extremely difficult.
Out of hours service would be excellent and improve continuity of care. Have urgent care centre services in the past but prefer own GP’s
Preferred the old system where you were guaranteed a morning appointment.
Satisfactory. In the last 12 months I have been seen by 4 different Doctors.
System works – however sometimes delay means anxiety
The system assumes you can get through the phone line! It is a problem if something is urgent on a Saturday or Sunday. However I tend not to think of anything as urgent unless it is too long until I get a routine appointment
The telephone response from the doctor is quite good
unaware of its existence
Very Good
Very good service for babies and young children
Very good, i would recommend as excellant
Very nice doctor ring within hour also if really need to see they call us Thank you
We’re Lucky!

Patient Comments on the Routine Appointment System