1. Trent Meadows Medical Practice
Patient Survey
February 2019

2. Our Questionnaires
Firstly we would like to say a BIG thank you to all our patients who took the time to complete our questionnaires in February. We are very lucky to also have a great Patient Participation group (PPG) who worked very hard over the week volunteering their time to gather the information and input over 350 questionnaires for analysis. Thank you to everyone involved.
ALL the information submitted has been checked and verified independently via our PPG

3. A) Obtaining a repeat prescription

4. B) Access via the telephone system

5. C) Our appointment system

6. D) About the team

7. E) And finally

8. General Information

9. General Information

10. Comments added by our patients
I am very satisfied with the practice
Keep going
The nurses are friendly and helpful. They would see us last minute and without an appointment at times. Can’t thank them enough
Very happy
An amazing practice, best in Burton
Fantastic practice always
I do most things on line but on the odd occasion that I’ve phoned reception have found them helpful and polite
Much better now you can ring at 8am
I have always had excellent service form the team
The practice is disabled friendly, lots of space to get around. I am glad to be part of this
Always had excellent service, thank you
Brilliant staff, great doctors, always manages to access an appointment

11. Comments added by our patients
Whilst we are very pleased to receive these positive and encouraging comments we are always striving to improve our services. Our practice has produced the following action plan and FAQ’s based on our survey results and feedback that focuses on our weaker areas and to try and work together with our patients to make further improvements.

12. Feedback FAQ’s
When trying to make appointments for my children, I feel too many questions are asked which can cause a parent to become anxious about their child Our reception team may ask on occasion questions relating to the presenting illness to determine the clinical priority and safety of the individual. We apologise if we have caused anxiety, this is not our intention. I find I really struggle to get appointments around my working commitments We do understand your concerns, however we do run regular evening sessions and have access to evening and weekend appointments across East Staffordshire. These appointments are subject to availability but please ask our reception team and will be happy to search for clinics that exceed – to try and help you. Need to sort out prescription enquiries when been asked lots of times some receptionists with better manners. We have recently completed a full review of our repeat medication processes, furthermore we now have a full time Clinical Pharmacist which has made a significant improvement to our services. With regard to our reception team, we will always investigate individual feedback. Our Office Manager will contact you directly to discuss any concerns.

13. Feedback FAQ’s Make nurse appointments online
The difficulty with making online nurse appointments available is the time slot allocated cannot be amended on the current online services. For example a patient may wish to book in a diabetic review, however these are a 20 minute appointment, the slots online are only 10 minutes. The other reason why it is difficult currently to put them online is because our nursing team have varying specialties which makes this impossible for our patient booking directly to know who can deal with their need.
Having to attend appointments at Branston when I live in Stretton , not ideal
Whilst we understand it is not ideal, in some cases for patients it is simply not feasible. Earlier this year we opened our entire appointment system for both sites to offer patients the soonest next available appointment we could offer. We did this for two reasons
The growth in population at both Branston and Stretton is significant and in order to meet the growing need we have to adapt and pull our limited resources together so we can provide patients with the ,most optimum access we can.
Patients that can travel will be encouraged to do as the Main surgery has much greater capacity, it also enables the branch surgery to then meet the need of our population that are elderly, vulnerable or have complex needs who do not have means of accessing the wider service. If patients specifically request to be seen at our branch surgery that’s ok too, but it maybe that the appointment availability is lower and patients may have to wait a little longer.

14. Feedback FAQ’s
Cannot book blood test online as I am deaf, or upgrade prescriptions. I need to have doctors appointments as cannot be done over the phone Blood tests cannot be booked online as we have a limited service and reserve appointments to patients who are undergoing investigations as per our own GP’s at their request. Most patients now are asked to go the hospital for their testing unless the GP has specifically requested otherwise. Furthermore we are dedicated to ensuring all our patients have equal access to our services and please ask that any patients that require alternative arrangements due to an impairment or disability speak with us so we can meet your needs appropriately. You can order prescriptions using the online service, and send direct messages to the practice if this is something you wish to consider too? Not enough online appointments We agree, the online availability is steadily increasing and we have doubled the amount of online appointments in January to provide patients with some further time variants. We are determined to create more capacity for this service and will have increased these further by 25% in July. When I ring for an appointment I am always told the appointments aren't released so when I ring the next time they have gone. How? Appointments are released everyday throughout the day automatically. We have a number of appointments same day, over the next 48 hrs and those in advance of 1 week. Patients will be asked for the reason for their appointment and will be offered the next available slot with the most appropriate clinician (which is NOT always a GP). We understand at times the appointments maybe limited, this varies on the demand and daily capacity, which can be affected by annual leave, unforeseen illness, emergency visits etc.. And we fully understand that it can be frustrating to our patients when on some mornings 30+ appointments will be booked in the space of 30 minutes. We want you to see our clinicians and we want to help you wherever we can but we have limited resources, we are trying hard to encourage patients to treat minor ailments with over the counter medications where appropriate, signposting to wider services and managing medication requests at first point of call where possible to allow patients that need the appointments get them.

15. Guidance provided for future medication reviews
Action
Priority
Status
Responsible
Length of time waiting to see a clinician (in waiting room) *excluding sit and waits
Patients 1 problem 1 appointment / Patient education ALL
Longer time allocation for complex needs / additional 15 minute slot availability
GP catch up breaks – extension of clinic
Complex needs established to be booked towards end of clinic / not within same day sit and waits
High
In progress
Management Team MF / AD
Partnership
Guidance provided for future medication reviews
Patient information / publications
Extended communications with pharmacies for consistent information to be provided to patients avoiding confusion
Med Review templates incorporating patient resources / care plans / time tables
Clinical pharmacist / patient dialogue in consultation / f2f medication reviews
Medium
In Progress
AA / AD
Speed at which telephone was answered initially
Re structure of resources to meet peak demand times
Opened negotiations for improved telephone system across the practice providing queuing and messenger systems
Increasing online appointment availability
SMS communicating normal results, follow care etc directly from clinician to patient, reducing telephone traffic
Management team / Partnership
The information provided by the reception team
Frequent team meetings for updates and changes to practice
Reference index / KLOE access for consistent approach
On-going training and CPD
Management Team / Partnership
Have you signed up for patient online
PPG / Practice promotions
New patient registrations (inclusive)
Practice demonstrations / NHS app development
FAQ’s / newsletter / in house promotion and information
All

16. Lastly we wish to thank all our patients for their continued support.
Monitoring
We are committed to making improvements for all our patients and will endeavour to keep our patients up to date with our progress via our PPG and Quarterly newsletters (available on Facebook, in practice and on our website)
We are a forward thinking practice, continually assessing our own processes and looking how to plan ahead for our practice sustainability and the provision of optimum service for all our patients. This has and will always remain our priority.
Lastly we wish to thank all our patients for their continued support.