The Department of Health believe that pateint involvment in G.P. Surgerys will bring about improvements to the surgery

The Patient Group was formed in October 2011 and the minutes of the meetings can be found on the next two pages.

TORRIDON ROAD PATIENT REFERENCE GROUP

MEETING DATED : Saturday 29 OCTOBER  2011.

Attendees :  Frank McNichol (Practice manager) and 3 patients from the Surgery

Aplogies for absence : 1

Frank Mc Nichol (FM) began the meeting by welcoming the group to the practice. He then took the group on a tour of the building to explain the layout and use of rooms, as this could have a bearing on ideas for service improvements.

FM then gave a handout to each person of the group giving background to how the practice works and fits into the NHS (see attached). Also attached is age/sex report of the practice patients.

Surgery appointments

The meeting went on to discuss the surgery appointments and reception staff. FM explained the appointments’ system, which is based on an American idea, where you identity the numbers of patients wanting appointments each day and you provide sufficient medical staff to action that number of patients. The busiest days in order of the highest appointments needs are: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, with Thursday having the lowest demand. We provide ‘book on the day’ appointments each morning and a mixture of ‘book on the day’ and 'book ahead appointments’ each afternoon. We also open early from 7.00am on Thursday, and finish late up to 7.00pm on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday evenings.

Some of the group were unaware on the early and late appointments (originally set up for commuters to use). They asked if the appointments could be better explained on a new poster on the front window.

Action : Design a poster explaining surgery times and types of appointments available. Can this information also be added to the web site? I suggest we ask Group to review current web site to check it meets patient needs.

Reception desk and staff

The group wanted the surgery to create the best impression to patients when they came into the building. FM said he had tried over the last few years to find a customer care course for receptionists but had unable to do so.

The group suggested the reception staff meet together to look at ways of improving the current front desk service. The group suggested the reception staff design their own in-house training course?

Regarding the waiting room, the group said the glass barrier on the front desk does not create a best first impression to patients. The PM said the staff also feels it is like working in goal fish bowel. He wants to put some frosted cover over one of the reception windows to create a better working environment for the staff. It was suggested that one of the first reception windows be taken down, however this would cause confidentiality problems as patients could hear what was being said by the medical and reception staff.

Action: reception staff to meet to discuss ways to improve front desk services. Also to develop their own in-house reception staff training course.

Create a positive impression – Notice Boards

FM explained that each year he produces a patient questionnaire about the surgery servicers and publishes the results for patients to read.

The group felt that some ages of patients did not participate in the questionnaire. This however has always been true of young people who do not require the surgery services as much as other groups. If these groups do not attend surgery how do we check that the services meet their needs? This item needs further discussion.

However it was agreed that we should have a dedicated notice board for younger patients. This notice board should contain information on how to contact services aimed at them. Also we should have a leaflet holder next to the notice boards for leaflets specifically aimed at their age group. This could be extended to have clearer notice board areas for specific age groups

Action: Surgery to plan and re-arrange current notice boards into specific groups of patients, including leaflet holders.

After having toured the building and some of the information in the staff room detailing how well the surgery is performing within the borough. It was felt that the surgery did not project a positive image of itself. We should therefore inform patients how many appointments patients have attended and how the surgery/patients are achieving NHS targets.

Action: To put positive information both on the notice board and web site, and surgery newsletter.

The Group were surprised at the number of extra local services the surgery is involved in. They suggested a notice detailing the GP’s who lead in various topics, e.g. diabetes.

As this was our first meeting and explained background information, future meeting are planned to last no longer than one hour.

The group felt this was a worthwhile project to improve the services offered to patients

Next meeting yet to be arranged.

TORRIDON ROAD PATIENT REFERENCE GROUP

MEETING DATED : Saturday 7^th January 2012.

Attendees :  Frank McNichol (Practice manager)

                                             and 3 patients

 Apologies for absence: One patient

Frank Mc Nichol (FM) welcomed the group and stated the following had been achieved since the last meeting;

• Passed the Infection Control Audit of the surgery,
• Awarded another three years approval from London Deanery as a Training practice. (The award was for five years but we preferred the London Deanery to assess us again in three years)
• We had updated our website to include the minutes of this Groups first meeting and the Patient Questionnaire Results.

Surgery appointments

The poster produced for the last meeting’s action did not meet the Groups approval, as it did not incorporate all the requirements.

We again discussed the type of the appointments available, i.e. ‘book on the day & ‘pre booked’. Then the access of patients to these appointments, e.g. how the patient queue differs between the morning and afternoons. The Group felt it was difficult to explain these complicated variations to patients.

Frank also said there where some inappropriate appointments booked with doctors, e.g. asking for repeat sick notes, using doctors to do blood pressures when a nurse does this work. This puts extra workload on doctors at this busy time of year.

Frank was looking to study the reason patients asked for appointments over a four week period. The results would be studied to see if any patterns could be seen and ways to improve this service. The Group approved and suggested the results were discussed at the next meeting.

The Group wanted the surgery web site to be totally up to date as some patients only used the web site for surgery information.

Action: Collect and analyse the doctor’s consultations to see if we can improve the use of appointments.

Update web site with appointments and times information.

Reception desk and staff

The reception desk and administration staff attended a November training afternoon to discuss ways of improving the impressions of the reception services.

Frank informed the reception staff that he has told patients who have complained about staff attitude that if this occurs again they are to ask for the practice manager. Frank will then immediately meet with the patient and the staff member to resolve the issue. This should identify any staff that may not be aware of how they are perceived by patients.

Reception desk staff will have their name in name holders so patient can identify staff.

Blinds are to be installed in two of reception desk windows to channel patients to the first reception window.

Action: Identify any patient complaints about reception staff over next 8 weeks.

Create a positive impression – Notice Boards

Some notice boards had already been altered into the four categories of patients but we still have to move the leaflet holders. The Group suggested the notice boards could have colour coded name banners

The Group said the waiting room Call Display board needed reviewing.

Frank said he thought posters had little impact on patients and wanted to look at more interactive ways of getting patient attention and messages across. The Group agreed to look for more interactive messaging.

Action: Complete the re-arrangement of the current notice boards into specific groups of patients, including leaflet holders.

Look at interactive messages for patients including text messages which are dependent upon having all patients’ mobile phone numbers.

Review of Patient Complaints (March to Oct 2011)

The Group reviewed the patient complaints and were satisfied they were all completed with 10 days of receipt.

On average we received 2.5 complaints per month

Next meeting yet to be arranged.

Please see the results under the heading:-

'Practice News'