FAIRFAX GROUP PRACTICE
RESULTS OF PATIENT SURVEY CARRIED OUT IN FEBRUARY 2015
Total number of responses received – 209 (just over 2% of practice population)
Opening Times:
Q.
Our reception hours are 8.30 am until 6.00 pm Monday to Friday. Are you satisfied with
these hours?
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Q.
82% of respondents were satisfied with current opening times
16% would like to see longer opening hours
2% did not respond
Surgeries run throughout the day but on certain days we have early surgeries starting at
7.30 am and late surgeries until 7.00 pm. Are you likely to use these early/late surgeries?
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79% of respondents said they would be likely to use early/late appointments.
20% said they were not likely to use them
Although as a practice we offer extended hours with surgeries running from 7.30 am until 7.30 pm,
we currently do not have reception or phone lines open outside the hours of 8.30 am and 6.00 pm.
At present we are only required and only have the resources available to employ staff within the
core working hours. However, as the Government is keen to extend the working hours of General
Practice, this is something that may change in the future.
Extended Working Hours:
Q.
We are now working with other practices in the area to provide extended hours for
routine appointments each weekday evening until 8.00 pm and at weekends from 8.00 am
to 6.00 pm, although it is not likely to be one of the practice GP’s that you see. Is this a
service you would use?
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86% said they would use this service
12% said they would not use this service
2% did not respond
Comments received included the fact that patients do like the fact that they are able to access GP
appointments later in the evenings and at weekends. It would appear from the responses that
patients generally do not mind if they do not see their usual GP. It should be pointed out,
however, that the Extended Working Hours service which is being jointly provided by practices in
the area is currently a Government Funded Pilot Scheme and depending on the feedback and
results of the pilot, a decision will be taken on whether funding should be continued to make this a
permanent arrangement.
On-line Services:
Q.
Do you know that you can book appointments and order repeat prescriptions online and
would you use this service?
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76% of respondents would use this service
23% of respondents would not be likely to use this service
Comments from patients included the fact that although they are able to go on-line to access the
appointment booking facility, there are often no appointments available. This is something we are
currently looking into as although there are usually appointments for one week or more in
advance for pre-booking, there are rarely appointments for the same day or within the next few
days available. We are aware that some patients do not have on-line access but even if more
patients who can use the on-line facility make use of it, then this should make it easier for those
patients without on-line access to get through on telephone to the surgery.
As per Government requirements, we are required to actively promote the use of on-line services
for repeat prescription ordering and the booking of appointments and this is something we have
been doing for some time now. Very soon, patients will also be able to view their summary care
record on-line.
Telephone Consultations:
Q.
Are you aware that we offer telephone consultations for patients who do not necessarily
need a face to face appointment?
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86% of respondents were aware of this
13% were not aware of this
Over the last few weeks we have offered more telephone consultations as an alternative to face to
face consultations, wherever appropriate. To encourage greater use of this service we are trying
to offer more flexibility within regular working hours and patients should always be asked if they
whether they would prefer a telephone appointment. We will also be looking at the possibility of
making telephone appointments available to book on-line.
Telephone Triage:
Q.
Do you know that we offer a triage service each weekday for patients who need to be seen
urgently the same day once all routine bookable appointments have been taken?
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76% of respondents were aware of this service
23% of respondents were not aware of this service
1% did not respond
We have offered a telephone triage service for around 5 years now and this is an increasingly
important service we offer in an attempt to cut down on A&E attendances. Urgent requests for
appointments should always go through the triage/on-call doctor once all routine appointments
for the day have been taken in order to discourage patients from attending A&E. This is another
reason why the extended working hours service has been set up. We are constantly monitored by
the Government on our A&E attendance rates so that wherever possible we can prevent
attendances for minor problems, ensuring these are dealt with in primary care.
Minor Illness Clinics:
Q.
We now have a minor illness clinic most weekdays which is run by our Nurse Practitioner.
Would you be happy to use this service rather than see a doctor when appropriate?
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88% of respondents would be happy to use this service
10% of respondents would prefer to see a doctor
2% did not respond
This is a fairly new service that we have been offering and ensures that we can increase access to
our services, again to help prevent attendances at A&E and to free up appointments with our
doctors for the more complicated problems. Our nurse practitioner is able to prescribe medication
for a number of minor ailments and it has fast become a very popular service with our patients.
Text Messaging Service:
Q.
We are hoping to introduce a text messaging service to remind patients of appointments
and for calling in patients for immunisations, health checks, annual reviews etc. Is this
something you would find useful?
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82% of respondents would find this useful
17% of respondents would not find this service useful
1% did not respond
We did have a text messaging service some time ago which for various technical reasons failed to
continue. However, as this service was very popular with our patients and because it also helped
to significantly cut down on the number of patients failing to attend for their appointment, this is
something we are going to re-invest in so that we can re-introduce a text/e-mail messaging service
which links with our clinical system. It is also a useful service for calling patients for health checks,
immunisations etc. Again, we are mindful of the fact that not all patients use text messaging.
Specialist Clinics:
Q.
We already run special clinics specifically for female health, minor surgery, anticoagulation
testing, respiratory disease, diabetes etc. Do you think specialist clinics are useful and
would you be likely to use these if and when required?
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92% of respondents did think these were useful and would use them if necessary
5% did not think they were useful
3% did not respond
A significant 92% of patients felt that special clinics such as the ones we already offer were useful
and we intend to continue with these, as well as offering additional clinics as and when the need
arises. It should be pointed out, however, that these are also dependent on the appropriate
funding being made available to run these clinics. With regards our patients who are over the age
of 75 years, we ensure that they all have a named GP and those who are at risk of hospital
admission or who have a chronic disease usually have a care plan in place to ensure they are
monitored and cared for appropriately. We encourage patients to attend NHS screening tests as
per Government guidelines, ie breast cancer and bowel cancer screening programmes.
General Comments Received:
There were many comments received and we were pleased at the number of positive responses
about our practice that were recorded from patients who felt this was a good and caring practice
with a good reputation.
From the comments we received, we were able to identify a number of additional and recurrent
themes, apart from those already addressed above, as areas for possible improvement:
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Getting through to the practice on the phone at busy times, ie early mornings, can still be a
problem. There has been an improvement since we reverted to opening appointments
each day rather than patients having to ring on a Monday to book an appointment for the
week ahead. We do ensure that all available phone lines are usually open but we will look
to improve the service by increasing the number of patients able to access on-line services
and ensuring that appointments are available each morning for both face to face and
telephone appointments.
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Waiting times in surgery. We received a number of comments about the waiting times for
appointments and the fact that these often run late. This is often because patients come
for their appointment with more than one problem which takes longer than the allotted 10
minutes but we also recognise the need to ensure we keep patients informed if and when
there is a delay.
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Longer surgery hours were definitely something which patients wanted and this is
something which is being developed further by practices in the area working together so
that an increased number of appointments are available until 8.00 pm each weekday and
from 8.00 am to 6.00 pm at the weekends.
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Some patients felt that they were given different information by different members of staff
and this is could be a training issue. We do have regular staff training sessions but we will
endeavour to make sure staff are giving patients correct and consistent information. We
will also endeavour to make more up to date information about services available in the
waiting room.
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On-line services were welcomed and it was suggested that these could be developed
further to also include informing patients when letters, test results etc were available. Online services are most likely to develop further in the near future and it is essential that
patients keep us informed of their up to date e-mail addresses and contact numbers to
enable this to be possible and for such a service to work efficiently.
Action Plan for 2015/16:
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To increase the number of on-line appointments available, particularly appointments for
the same day and within the next 2-3 days. This should include both face to face and
telephone appointments.
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To re-introduce a text/e-mail messaging service to remind patients of pre-booked
appointments and to invite them for health checks, immunisations etc. This will also
involve a continued campaign to collect up to date contact information from patients, ie email addresses and contact numbers so that we can maximise the use of text messaging
and on-line services for relaying information to patients.
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To endeavour to keep to appointment times whenever possible. This should include
informing patients that 10 minute appointments should not usually over-run as this causes
delays for subsequent patients and also to keep patients informed when there is a delay
and how long this is likely to be. This can be done by information being relayed by the
receptionist and also by the use of a new patient information system which is to be
installed in the waiting room. This will double as a patient call system and also a patient
information system which will run topical patient videos as well as having the ability to
display messages for patients, for example current waiting times etc.
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Continued staff training to ensure they are all aware of planned changes to services,
whether this is due to practice protocol or to Government/NHS requirements and to
ensure that all staff relay information to patients in a consistent manner.
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To actively work with the NHS to educate patients on the appropriate use of services.
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To work with other local practices to support the provision of the extended working hours
pilot scheme.
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To endeavour to provide any future NHS services locally for our patients.
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To continue to monitor our existing service provision and to maintain flexibility for any
changes that may be required.