It’s the weekend again already and time to look at the comments our patients have left for us. We are always grateful for the time our patients make to fill in the survey. It helps us to focus on the areas our patients feel need improvement, which helps us to improve our services further. We are obviously restricted in what we can do by our resources, capacity and what lies within our power to change, but we always try to improve our services where we can.
So, what comments have our patients left this week?
The receptionist at surgery’s have been really good. Dr. Maters has been brilliant with my care.
Saw Jackie I believe on Thursday and very informative and got answer to questions and texted me back the same day.
Fantastic service all over
I had a appointment to see a female doctor but on the day the I was informed that she was ill and offered me a male doctor which I declined so was offered a appointment with a health care practitioner which I must admit was disappointing but after seeing her (Jackie) was very impressed with the care advice and understanding she gave me thank you Jackie
Unfortunately, we currently only have one female GP. But, as this patient experienced, we have a great female advanced nurse practitioner in Jackie. She can do most of the things GPs can and has a wealth of experience. I’m glad this patient also felt the consultation was a good one. From April we will have another female GP joining our team for 4 sessions a week.
After initial contact requesting appointment I was advised I would be contacted with an appointment but this didn’t happen it was only after another call that I received the appointment that went well
I think we need to have a word with our receptionist about how they word things as we are informed about quite a few of these misunderstandings.
When you contact the surgery to request a GP appointment, the receptionist will take your details and details of the condition you want help with. The receptionist will write these details in your medical record and put your name on the assessment of need list.
One of the clinicians will then go through the details and decide what the best outcome for you would be. This could be an appointment with a nurse, with a GP, a prescription, some advice, or signposting to another service (pharmacist, optician, i-Heart, walk-in centre, etc).
Your request will not always result in an appointment with a GP at the surgery.
Once the outcome is known, this outcome will be passed to you, usually via a text message, but where needed this will be by telephone instead.
It is important to keep a close eye on your telephone to make sure you see the message as soon as possible after it is sent. Nowadays, these messages are often sent to the NHS App if you have it. A message relating to an appointment at the surgery may be sent close to the appointment if that’s when the appointment is available.
We don’t want you to miss your appointment, so please keep an eye on your phone.
Service very good, However it took me 64 calls to get through to surgery then 34 minutes in line and on hold untill someone answered..this issue is the biggest problem between the public and the surgery..
This is also an issue we are currently working on. We have recently signed a contract with a new provider for our telephone system. The current contract is between the ICB and the provider in our name. Unfortunately, there are quite a few things that need to take place before the new system, which we are hopeful will be a vast improvement on the current system, is in place. A site survey needs to take place to find out if new cabling is required, new phones need installing, and computer programs too. We are really excited as the phone system is really cloud-based and can therefore even be used from laptops for business continuity. It also integrates with our clinical system, which means that it recognises the potential caller and brings up the medical record automatically. That should hopefully save our receptionists a little time and all those seconds should eventually lead to shorter waiting times for patients. How it will work in reality is something we will need to find out, but we look forward to an improvement on what we’ve currently got. We hope to have this in place by April.
Dr Lannon is an absolute credit to the practice. He shows compassion, takes time to listen to you, gives whatever advice/medication is required and is by far the best GP across grimethorpe and Cudworth surgeries. He is outstanding at what he does!
I really appreciate the good
Work that is done
It would be nice if you could pick the doctor you want to see i used to see Dr Bell but hes retired now so dont know which other doctor to see
We will always take into account what the patient’s preference is. However, we also believe it is better to see a clinician who is available than to wait a longer time for the one of choice. We can’t always book with the clinician of choice.
I personaly dont see a need to change anything im happy with the service provided
I only went for a 3monthly appointment for b12 injection
The need of assessment triage simply doesn’t work. I was refused appointments last week and told to attend iheart. When you don’t drive and have young children this is challenging in itself. I was diagnosed with an infection via iheart, this could have been done by my own gp and I could have received treatment a lot sooner. It’s frightening and frustrating when you repeatedly cannot see a gp in your own clinic. Not only that but having to tell the receptionist every detail of your health issue to try and get an appointment is somewhat embarrassing and unnecessary. Something has to change, it’s dangerous to refuse to see people based on what they’re willing to tell a receptionist.
This practice needs to make the best use of the capacity it has. This means the clinician who performs the assessment of need, will need to decide which patients need to be seen at the surgery, and which could or should be signposted to a service that is more or just as appropriate. i-Heart can only deal with acute problems, they can’t deal with mental health (other than out-of-hours), chronic disease, or referrals for investigations or to specialist care. The appointments we have available at the practice are limited, and we receive over 100 requests every day for an appointment with a GP. The number of GP appointments (and for ease, we class appointments with the physician associate and advanced nurse practitioner as such too) we have available per day is far less than 100. This patient was signposted appropriately to i-Heart. i-Heart is an extension of primary care, providing much-needed extra capacity. It is now mostly based at the Priory Campus in Lundwood, which is much easier to reach. Unfortunately, we don’t have the capacity to see over 100 patients every day for GP appointments.
I was contacted to have a medication review. I also asked if I could have a psa test while I was having my blood tests and this was done so very happy
If patients are already having regular PSA blood tests, we are happy to do this at the same time as it saves both the patient and the practice an appointment. However, if a patient just wants to know what their PSA is because it has been in the news, a consultation with a GP, PA, or ANP will be needed beforehand. The PSA is not a test that tells patients that yes, they have prostate cancer, or no, they haven’t. Before a patient has the test done, they need to be aware of the implications of a raised or a normal result. Only then can we allow them to have the test done.
The nurse I saw is absolutely lovely. Very friendly while still being professional.
I found the nurse really helpful this was for a planned test
I had to have a telephone appt with the Nurse which was totally unnecessary .Because of misinformation from the Receptionist at Cudworth…one of my needed repeat prescriptions was stopped ? Yet 1 I ASKED to be stopped was still on? I finally got a great response from Grimethorpe &, my phone conversation with the Nurse was brilliant ,altho was productive , wasn’t needed &, took someone else’s appt
I am not sure what happened here. I will investigate what happened and what lessons we can learn from this to hopefully become more efficient. Thank you for your comments.
I have tried to get my prescription only they have not got any of the steroid in, due to difficulties from the supplier.told to try on Monday.
It sounds like this relates to one of the many medications that the pharmacy can’t get hold of. There are a lot of those currently, and more get added every week, where others become available again. Other than causing problems for our patients, it is also causing a lot of additional work for our receptionists and doctors. For every medication we are informed of the pharmacy can’t get hold of, the receptionist first needs to cancel the prescription in the patient’s medical record. They then need to send a message (task) to the GP to request an alternative. Sometimes the pharmacy hasn’t even told us what alternatives they have available, which leaves us guessing. We either go back to them to find out what they have, and then need to request that prescription from the GP. The GP then needs to issue this prescription, sign it, and send it over to the pharmacy electronically. Sometimes, we are then told that they haven’t got that either, or that they managed to get hold of the first prescription after all. A lot of additional (and sometimes even avoidable) work. Please bear with us if a medication is not available from the pharmacy, Your request is one of hundreds of other requests every day.
And here are the results of the Friends and Family Test this week:
How likely are you to recommend our GP practice to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?
Extremely likely
Can you tell us why you gave that response?
Felt very involved in decision making.
Do you think the practice has improved in the last 12 months?
Yes
What are we doing particularly well?
Involving patients in decision making even a lot more.
What do you feel we can improve on and how?
Long wait for an appointment.
How likely are you to recommend our GP practice to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?
Extremely Unlikely
Can you tell us why you gave that response?
This surgery is disgusting when comes to appointments and I may has well tell the street why I need an appointment
Do you think the practice has improved in the last 12 months?
No it’s massively declined over the last few years
What are we doing particularly well?
The nurses are the best thing well two of the Gemma and I can’t remember the other name but she’s in navy blue
What do you feel we can improve on and how?
Make appointments available
If this patient really feels about the practice the way the patient has reported, we wonder why the patient is still registered with us. We are sorry they feel this strongly about us. We can only assure our patients we are doing the best with the resources we have. Unfortunately, we can’t physically create more appointments because the space and staff available are used to the maximum of their capacity.
Please also remember, if you are dissatisfied with our services, you are entitled to register with a different practice if you wish. You can also make use of our complaints procedure if you prefer.
How likely are you to recommend our GP practice to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?
Extremely likely
Can you tell us why you gave that response?
Saw doctor Sam her friendly approach and knowledge on subject matter put my mind at ease. She was kind and suggested a treatment plan which would best suit me.
What do you feel we can improve on and how?
The long message at the beginning of the call can be frustrating.
We can assure you we will change the message once the new system will be implemented.
How likely are you to recommend our GP practice to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?
Extremely likely
Can you tell us why you gave that response?
Great doctors and nurses and staff
Do you think the practice has improved in the last 12 months?
Just the same
What are we doing particularly well?
Care for patients
What do you feel we can improve on and how?
Nothing
And that concludes this week’s comments on our Patient Satisfaction Survey and the Friends and Family Test. Overall a good response, with the odd disgruntled patient. Our weak point is the phone system, something we’re working on. Capacity remains an issue and communication can be improved. We will take all your comments on board and use these when considering any changes. If you are interested in helping us improve our services, you could also consider joining our Patient Participation Group. You can find more about this on our website.
