Dr Evans, Dr Thomas,
Dr Percival, Dr Ford,
Dr Nixon, Dr Berry,
Dr Slater, Dr Sword
& Mrs. C. Tilley
Whitecliff Surgery, Whitecliff Mill Street
Blandford Forum, Dorset, DT11 7BH
Child Okeford Surgery, Upper Street
Child Okeford, Dorset, DT11 8EF
WHITECLIFF GROUP SURGERY NEWSLETTER
Summer 2013
I that hope you enjoy reading
the summer edition of the
Whitecliff
Group
Practice
newsletter.
If there are any topics or
questions that you would like
to see covered in the next
newsletter, please do not
hesitate to contact me by
telephone or via our website.
GOOD NEWS
The Whitecliff Group Practice
based in Child Okeford and
Blandford Forum, is committed
to continuing to improve local
GP services by listening and
acting on local feedback.
Our recent patient survey (with
252 responses) showed:

92% of patients who did
require an appointment on
the same day got one (either
by telephone or with a
subsequent appointment).

89% of patients thought that
our reception services had
improved a result of staff
training.

86% of our patients thought
that our telephone system
has improved.

Average waiting time for
patients in the waiting room
has
reduced from
20
minutes to 12 minutes.
Carol Tilley, Practice Manager
CHANGES TO OUR TEAM
2013 is turning out to be a
very exciting year for the
Whitecliff Group Practice.
We are very pleased to
announce that from March, Dr
Slater and Dr Sword become
partners in the Practice.
Mrs Carol Tilley (Practice
Manager) has become a nonclinical partner.
Dr Nankervis will also be
joining the Practice as a full
time salaried GP.
DID YOU KNOW
YOU CAN NOW BOOK
APPOINTMENTS ON LINE?
Please contact our
reception team who will
give you further
information.
We hope you can see the
improvements we are making to
your GP services, based on
your feedback. The GPs and
practice staff would like to thank
you for your on-going support of
the practice over the past years.
If you have any feedback or
comments, please do contact
Carol Tilley, Practice Manager
at the above address or
email us using the ‘contact us’
icon on our surgery website:
www.whitecliffpractice.co.uk.
We also welcome patients to
become part of our patient
participation group to help
shape things for the future.
DISPENSARY SERVICES
Our dispensaries have now
established a delivery service to
many of the village shops, so
that patients can pick up their
medication
in
their
local
community and do not have to
travel into the surgeries and we
also provide home deliveries for
housebound patients. We have
an on line ordering system for
repeat prescriptions and can
manage repeat prescriptions on
patient’s behalf for most
medication, so their orders are
automatically repeated each
month.
If you wish to use any of these
services, please come into the
surgery and speak to one of our
dispensary team who will help
you find the best option for your
circumstances. Whilst it is not
safe practice to repeatedly
interrupt the dispensers through
the day to answer the
telephone; if you do need to
speak to the dispensary team
by telephone, please give your
name to our receptionist who
will leave a message for a
dispenser to telephone you
back that day.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
QUESTIONS:
In this section we have tried
to answer some of the
questions that we get asked
most frequently by our
patients:
Why is the surgery so busy?
The number of patients that the
surgery is looking after has
remained fairly constant over
the last four years. However,
doctor’s surgeries across the
country are increasingly busy.
The reasons for this are:

An ageing population and
people living longer.

More people are living with
chronic long term conditions
that consequently require
more ongoing monitoring
and treatment (e.g. diabetes,
chronic heart disease, etc).

People are discharged from
hospital sooner. Therefore
the care and treatment that
was previously received in
the hospital is now delivered
by your GP.
Do I have to see the doctor I
am registered with?
For administration purposes,
all patients have to be
registered with a doctor who is
Partner of the Practice.
Patients do not have to see the
doctor they are registered with
and can choose to see another
doctor on a regular basis; or to
see a different doctor each visit
if this it what they prefer to do.
Where you are likely to be
having multiple appointments
for the same illness, we usually
recommend that you continue
to see the same doctor for that
episode of care as this gives
you continuity of care.
However, if you require urgent
attention, are worried, or your
usual doctor is not available in
an appropriate timescale; we
always recommend that you do
not delay seeking medical
advice and take an earlier
appointment with an alternative
doctor. All the doctors have
access to all your patient notes
and medical history.
Why do I find it difficult to get
an appointment with my
preferred doctor?
The surgery is open on average
58 hours a week. Doctors also
have to complete paperwork
after the surgery is closed.
Therefore a doctor’s day is a
very long and it is not safe for a
doctor to work all day everyday.
Many doctors work part time as
they have family commitments.
As well as holding surgeries
doctors have to do hours of
follow up paperwork, undertake
training to maintain their skills
and attend GP meetings.
Doctors also have annual leave
and occasionally do become
unwell themselves and have to
take sick leave.
How many appointments do
you offer?
01 January to 31 March 2013,
The Whitecliff Group Practice
provided 18,438 appointments
at Blandford and 5459 at Child
Okeford with either a doctor or
a nurse.
Why do you use telephone
appointments?
Using telephone appointments
enables the doctors to respond
very quickly to patients who
require urgent medical advice.
They can diagnose and treat
some conditions very easily by
phone. This can save some
people who are unwell from
having to travel into the
surgery. If the doctor does
need to see you they will
arrange an appointment to see
you
in
an
appropriate
timescale.
Why do I have to telephone
the doctor for my results?
Doctors receive thousands of
result each week. They review
each of these results and will
contact a patient if the result
shows that the patient needs
follow up treatment or advice.
The doctors cannot advise
patients of results that do not
require following up as this is
not practical. If a patient has a
test, then it is ultimately the
patient’s
responsibility
to
contact the surgery for the
results.
Why can’t I telephone the
dispensary any more?
The dispensaries dispense up
to 21,000 items per month.
This equates to around a 1000
items a day that have to be
printed off from the computer,
selected correctly from the
shelf, labelled and then double
checked by another dispenser.
To dispense safely it has been
necessary to remove the direct
dispensary phone as the
constant interruption meant that
this was increasing the risk of
dispensing errors for our
patients.
Why am I kept waiting in the
waiting room?
A standard appointment is 10
minutes. Doctors run late for
many reasons:

They get called away to deal
with a patient emergency.

Patients arrive late
disrupt the schedule.

Patients sometimes need
more than 10 minutes if they
have a difficult problem, or if
they are distressed.
and
Please be understanding –
you may benefit from this
yourself when if you have an
emergency or need a bit of
extra time with the doctor!