Purton and Green Gable Surgery
Group for Patients - G4P
Newsletter 2
2011
Green Gable Surgery
Green Gable Surgery in Cricklade is a Branch Surgery. What does this mean?
A Branch Surgery could be called a satellite surgery. While Purton Surgery is the main surgery for the practice, at Green Gable Surgery the provision of services is the same and patients can be seen urgently in both surgeries. In addition Cricklade patients can be seen at Purton surgery and Purton patients can be seen at Cricklade surgery. However patients wanting an appointment during the current appointment session (within five hours) need to phone the surgery where they wish the appointment to be – this is to avoid two patients being given the same appointment.
One last point – in the rare event of a staff shortage then the main Purton surgery will need to stay open and Green Gable Surgery may therefore be closed. Cricklade patients will be able to be seen at Purton.
New website for the surgery
A new website for the surgery is currently being built and will be launched shortly.
Health Promotion events
We want to know what events you would like us to arrange, so will be asking for your ideas and suggestions. Look out for the questionnaire which will be in your local magazine, in the surgeries and coming out by email
Fundraising
Why do we need to fundraise? ….
When we hold events we need to pay for the hire of the venue. In addition we have been asked about providing (a) baby-changing facilities and (b) a new stand for the leaflets in the surgery. We will be holding a tea/coffee afternoon in October to begin funding for these.
Seasonal Flu Clinics
These will be starting at the end of September and the surgery would initially like to invite the
following people to call the surgery to make an appointment …
- Anyone over 65 years of age
- Anyone age 5-64 years who has one or more of the following
o Diabetes
o Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
o Chronic Heart Disease
o Chronic Renal failure
o Has undergone a splenectomy
o Severe Asthma resulting in recent hospitalisation or taking inhaled steroids on an ongoing basis (i.e. not seasonal)
o Is in receipt of a Carers Allowance
o Pregnant Ladies
The surgery intends to virtually complete its vaccination programme by the end of October. Please ring 770207 (752633 for Green Gable branch surgery) to make an appointment from 14th September onwards. Please note that patients who are given an appointment who do not fulfil NHS criteria will be turned away as the surgery is unable to give this vaccine privately. A special Saturday clinic will be available in early October exclusively for patients in the at risk groups who work during the week.
We are now on Facebook
Look for ‘Purton Surgery G4P’ on Facebook. We plan to keep it updated with the latest information and coming events.
Email contact
Please remember that if you would like information by email then let us have your email address – either by handing it in to the surgery marked ‘for the attention of Kim’ or by sending it to us by emailing groupforpatients@gmail.com
Appointments System
Linda Hoffen, practice manager, writes …
When we changed our appointment system some five or six years ago we made approximately 30% of our appointments bookable on the day and the rest pre-bookable up to ten days in advance. We decided at that time to add the following week’s appointments every Thursday. Our reasons for changing the system were threefold: at that time the government set targets which stated that patients had to be able to see a doctor (please note this did not necessarily mean the doctor of choice) within two working days. This also meant that urgent cases could be seen quickly. Secondly, when appointments could be made up to two months ahead our rate of non-attendances was unacceptably high, and thirdly, patients told us that if they suddenly became ill they had no chance of seeing their favourite doctor because they were already full for at least a month!
After an initial adjustment period, this system worked well for a couple of years and patient feedback was very positive. However, over time, there was an increased expectation that an appointment could be made on the day for a specific doctor. These appointments became increasingly requested for non-urgent matters, making it difficult for patients who medically really needed to be seen quickly to get an appointment. Our patients also told us, via the various questionnaires, that they disliked having to phone in at eight thirty to get an appointment as this was not always convenient and that it was difficult to get through.
So have we changed our system again? The answer is not really. We have now made over eighty five percent of our appointments available for pre-booking. In order to do this, we have had to ensure that a system is in place whereby any patient who has an urgent medical need can be seen. What now happens is that if we have no appointments left and our patient feels an appointment on the day is necessary, a telephone assessment will be carried out by a doctor and any necessary action taken (including an appointment if deemed appropriate). The only real change is that we have put the emphasis for on-day appointments on medical need, not doctor choice, but at the same time we have released up to 100 more appointments for pre-booking (subject to holidays etc). I would also like to add that whilst triaging (assessing) all same day requests, usually by nurses, is now the norm in the majority of practices, we only use it when all our appointments have been taken, and it is then done by doctors.
Does this mean patients will always be able to see their favourite doctor? Unfortunately, we could never promise that, although surveys reveal that our patients achieve this 83% of the time against a Wiltshire average of 77% and a national average of 73% We have eight doctors, between them offering over 640 appointments each week for our practice population of nearly ten thousand, which is a high appointment to patient ratio. A full-time doctor sees approximately 125 patients per week; a part-time doctor will obviously see fewer than that, but they do take holidays, and also have to attend regular training days to keep their knowledge up to date. All the doctors are more than happy for their patients to see one of their colleagues when they are fully-booked as patient notes are kept fully up to date on our computer system. What we do promise is that we try to give all our patients an equal chance of seeing their doctor of choice, and where this is not possible we will always endeavour to meet their medical need.
Sheila Fowler
Secretary G4P
Past Newsletters
G4P June 2011 Newsletter