Patient Participation Group 2012-2013
Introduction
This is the second year of the official DES Patient Forum Group. We hold regular meetings every two-month at the surgery. Minutes are taken by a scribe and are chaired by an elected patient member of the forum group.
The practice population remains stable with almost 8,000 patients. It is approximately 95% white ethnicity. We have in the locality 3 Nursing Homes and 4 Residential Homes. We engage with these homes through our Gold Standard Framework meetings with representatives from the nursing home staff. For our housebound patients who have District Nursing service the District Nurses attend to give their input. These meetings tend towards the health issues and social issues of the patients.
In the past we have offered our Patient Forum Group meetings to be held on differing days and times. The Patient Forum Group have now elected to have the meetings on the same day, Tuesdays and to start at 5.30pm
Patient Group Profile
The profiles of the members of the group have tended to remain very similar to last year. The average age range remains high in spite the fact that we invite patients from aged 16 years, and both genders. The current age of the members range from 52 to 89 years and are equal in gender numbers.
We are pleased to note that the number of attendees has increased from last year from 8 members as at our last two meetings we welcomed 13 patients.
The practice is represented by the GP partners, the Practice Manager and the Office Manager.
Steps taken to contact full representation of group
The practice still contacts patients from a random selection as we did last year.
This is done by a random selection of the age ranges shown below and broken down equally into genders.
v 16 to 25 years
v 26 to 35 years
v 36 to 50 years
v 51 to 65 years
v 66 to 75 years
v 75 to 84 years
v 85 years and over
We still put a message on the Jayex system in the waiting room.
We continue to place a notice of the date of the next meeting and ask patients to register their interest at reception.
This year after discussion with the Patient Forum Group we also advertised our Patient Forum Group through our questionnaire. We asked for interested participants to fill in their name and contact details and we sent a letter inviting them to the next meeting. We were pleased that this did increase the patient numbers slightly.
Steps taken to determine and reach agreement on issues that had priority
The 1st meeting of the second official year took place on 24/04/12. The members discussed issues of interest and ideas for the next patient survey and also when to do the questionnaire.
Points of Discussion
a) The group expressed the view that the surgery should have a named photographic list of all members of staff in the waiting room.
b) Customer care- as this is a strong emphasis with the Care Quality Commission which comes into force in April 2013 and the practice needs to be prepared
c) Customer care – answering telephone
d) Customer care – being treated with dignity and respect
e) Customer care – knowledge base
f) Changes when Primary Care Trust ceases
g) Rationalisation within the NHS
h) Review the appointment system
i) Number of questionnaires to complete
j) On-line computer facilities
k) What local pharmacies offer
l) Complaints
Points of Decision
a) Fewer questions
b) Questionnaire to be given out during flu clinics same as last year – September and October
c) To have a minimum of 10% of the patient numbers to complete the questionnaire
d) Questions to cover customer care issues
e) Questions to cover on-line facilities
f) To find if patients know what health assistance they provide
Second meeting
The second meeting of the year was in June 2012. The practice had produced a draft questionnaire for the group to discuss. The group was also updated regarding local health issues. It was fed back that the doctors were not happy to have photographs of staff in the waiting room.
The questionnaire consisted of
v Patient profile age, sex
v Number of attendances at surgery during the year
v Evaluation of issues from last year
- No longer need to ring back at 3pm for an evening appointment
- Car parking issues
- Can book more than one appointment through on-line service
- Availability of booking GP appointments up to one month in advance
v The group agreed that the questionnaire was okay and to print it and hand them out during September and October
v The data from the questionnaire to be transferred to a spreadsheet
v Once analysed to presented to the Group via PowerPoint presentation
Manner sought to obtain views of registered patients
As this was the second official year of The Patient Group it had already been decided that the methods discussed were the most appropriate for this practice.
v Waiting room
v Receptionists
v Attached to prescriptions
v Personally by the doctors in their clinical room
v This years questionnaire
The Questionnaire
An ambitious 900 forms were printed off and the aim was to complete about 790 questionnaires. Last year the staff handed out 500 questionnaires and only received about 99 completed forms. Staff discussion decided that the action best to improve this was via
v Provision of plenty pens
v Clip boards to support the questionnaire
v Staff available to complete the form with the patient (some last year said that they didn’t have their reading glasses with them). Care was taken not to influence any answer by not prompting and remaining neutral and professional
v Patients themselves encouraging each other by talking to each when completing the questionnaire in the waiting room
Third Patient Group meeting
This meeting took place in September 2012. The group discussed issues of recruiting new members, updates within the practice and the NHS within the Bolton area. The Patient Group suggested the wearing of staff badges in place of the photograph suggestion. The practice had been selected to be a pilot for “Staying Well”. This is a scheme run in conjunction with Bolton Social Services and Public Health. The practice identifies 100 patients ages 65 years and over, not living in residential accommodation. A member of the Staying Well team writes to them and asks if they can visit. At this visit discussion takes place regarding current health and social issues and together the outcome is to remain in independent living or pre-empt early health and social issues.
Fourth Patient Group meeting
At this meeting in December 2012 the practice had completed the questionnaire and the data had been inputted into a spreadsheet. The group were to be presented at the final meeting in February 2013. Discussion took place regarding Bolton health issues. The group enjoyed festive mince pies and fizzy flavoured water.
Fifth Patient Group meeting and Steps taken to provide opportunity for the Patient Group to discuss the Action Plan
The fifth meeting of the Patient Group was in February 2013. The Patient Group welcomed new members who had expressed an interest from the questionnaire. The Chair gave a brief resume about the group. It was a meeting to compliment the surgery and patient views. It was not a meeting for grievance as the surgery has a complaints procedure. The meeting is about good ideas that can be implemented for the patients.
The Patient Group was informed that the staff now had ID badges.
The Group were informed of the new 111 service that was due to go live 21/02/13. They were also informed about the new Patient Transport Service contract. It was explained that as soon as the practice had further details we would put a notice up in the surgery such as the colour and ID of the service and the colour of the transport that they would be using.
The practice then presented the results of the questionnaire to the group by use of PowerPoint presentation. This presentation has been embedded into this report and also attached at the end for those not accessing this information electronically.
It was shown that
v Approximately 900 questionnaires were handed out by staff
v 813 were returned
On evaluating the data it was found that
v Most patients knew that they no longer needed to ring back at 3pm for an evening appointment.
v Car parking remained an issue for some. The practice had implemented staggered appointments. Start time 8.40, 9am, 9.0am and in the afternoon we offered a 1pm, 2pm and 4pm start time. The rationale behind this was that the flow of patients into the surgery would be fluid during the day. A possible explanation was that the questionnaires had been completed during the flu clinics which attract about 150 patients during a 2 hour period
v On-line users were now pre-booking more than one appointment for example a nurses appointment and then an appointment to follow on with a doctor
v Patients seemed to like being able to book up to 4 weeks in advance in order to plan, for example follow up appointments when new medication had been initiated
v Most people knew the facilities that the local pharmacies offer
Action Plan
Full discussion of the findings was given to the Patient Group at the February meeting. The Patient Group decided to focus on: -
v Customer Service when answering the telephone
v Customer service regarding staff knowledge
v Being treated with dignity and respect
v Under use of online services as the results showed that although there was a high percentage of patients having Internet access this did not cross over to the number of patients registered for on-line facility use
Points for Action Plan
These are the issues that the Patient Group and the practice have decided to focus on.
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You said
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We did
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The outcome was
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You wish to be treated with dignity and respect
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The questionnaire suggests that we are
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We need to maintain this level and not be complacent.
We will monitor this by short survey questionnaires throughout the year.
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Customer care from reception when answering telephone
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We have organised external training session for staff and will add this question to our main questionnaire for comparison data at the end of next year
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The outcome will be unknown until the next Patient Group questionnaire, although this should be reflected through the complaints procedure
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Customer care on reception and admin based knowledge
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We have organised external training events.
We have inputted a system to cascade the many changes within the NHS to the staff via our shared drive and internal e-mail system
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This outcome will be monitored through the year through the complaints procedure and then at the end of the year by the follow up questionnaire
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On-line computer facilities
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We are migrating to EMIS web at the end of May this year.
This computer software has more facilities for example use of text messaging. The practice feel that this can be used to market the on-line facilities that we can provide
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The practice can compare the number of users for on-line facilities and see if the numbers have increased
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Conclusion
The practice now has a firm Patient Group Forum membership but it is a continued on-going process to actively recruit new members. It has been noted that the views from the group are not interlinking as previous.
Details of the Surgery’s Action
The action plan was discussed at the last meeting and external training has been organised. The Patient Group was very positive and it was extremely pleasing to be complimented on some of the things that had been implemented
Once again we asked the member group to thing about areas and issues that they had thought about or heard from other patients and feedback at the next meeting scheduled for April 2013.
Our Distribution list
This report is sent to
v Patient Group members
v NHS Choice website
v Surgery website
v Bolton PCT
v Health watch (Bolton Links)
v Bolton Consortium
v Surgery waiting room
v Local Pharmacists
Associated document
PowerPoint (.pptx, 79.63 KB)
Last updated on 25 March 2013.
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