Plain Talking

Your opportunity to influence the future focus of your local healthcare provision

As you might be aware many things are changing rapidly within the NHS and we expect this change to continue in the future. One of the major changes is for more responsibility to be given to local doctors to ensure the NHS is providing services for the local community.

In order for this new local emphasis to work effectively we need to ask our patients what changes are required to the services available through local medical practices. We want to work with you to listen to your views so we can make improvements to the current services and obtain ideas from you about the development of additional services in the future.

To ensure we obtain input from the users of our services we are working with other GP practices across the area to form a Patient Participation Group which we are calling Plain Talking . The members of this group will provide regular input and feedback to help us identify the changes we should be considering.

If you are interested in finding out more about this group and how you could be involved please email or ring Heather Simpson telephone 01980 625314 or email h.simpson2@nhs.net

Regards

Heather Simpson

Practice Administrator

Barcroft Medical Practice

Plain Talking Patient Survey Results

Introduction

All the results were manually loaded per practice on to Survey Monkey. This enabled full analysis of the data at both individual practice level and as a group.

• The total patient population across all six practices was 28,000
• 129 patients completed the survey, therefore exceeding the target of at least 2 responses per 1000 patients

Results

The results are detailed below for Plain Talking in four sections:

1. Patient Demographics - This section gives details of the demographics, such as age, sex and ethnicity of the patients who completed the survey
2. A&E Attendances - This section reports on recent attendances at A&E including ways of reducing activity
3. Communication - This section looks into the ways in which patients and practices communicate and areas for improvement
4. Other Comments - This section reviews other comments made by respondents

SECTION 1: Patient Demographics

Responses were received from all ages of patients. 30% of responders were aged 56 – 65 years, and in total 51.6 % were aged 56 to 75 years. This was as expected as this is the age group that have health problems and chronic illnesses and are therefore more likely to have concerns about the GP services available and so responded to the survey. It is felt to be representative of the age groups that use Primary Care services.

Overall 70% of the responders were female and 30% male, which reflects the findings of every day GP service.

The vast majority, 95%, of responders were British or mixed British. This reflects the population of this area in rural Wiltshire with the towns of Amesbury and Tidworth. The remaining 5% were Bangladeshi, Asian or Other Black. 1.6% did not state their ethnic group. 10% of responders stated that they were a carer for another person. This is high if correlated to the whole practice population, but not if correlated to the high female, and older age group that have completed this survey.

SECTION 2: A&E Attendance

The majority, 65%, of respondents, had not attended A&E in the last year. Of the remaining respondents, 41 had visited A&E once or twice in the last 12 months and three had been more than three times. The reasons for attendance were categorised as follows:

When deciding to attend A&E, 37% of patients did so without recourse to any health professional. However, 63% had contacted their GP, the OOH service, 999 or NHS direct.

The GP Practice was opened when 54% of the respondents attended A&E. Of these respondents, 47% contacted their GP prior to attending. According to respondents, attendance could be reduced by quicker access to speak with a health care professional, improved education on self care and walk-in health centre facilities in Tidworth and Amesbury.

79% of the patients were aware of alternative services to A&E, and of these 65% felt they had sufficient information to use these services should the need arise.

65% of respondents also considered that it would be useful for Practices to contact patients after visiting A&E if the problem could have been handled in primary care.

SECTION 3: Communication

In this section, patients were asked about the channels of communication between Practices and patients as this area was direct and indirect raised throughout the initial Plain Talking meetings.

Communication from Patients to Practices

The method of communication depended on the service required. However, 63% of respondents preferred to contact their practice by telephone or call in person and 21% wished to use email.

Communication from Practices to patients

Again, the method of communication depended on the service required. However, 73% of respondents preferred to be contacted by telephone, 39% by SMS and 45% to be invited into the Practice. Adding messages to the right hand side of prescriptions or on websites was not popular.

Communicating about general practice information and campaigns

It was evident that Practices need to use a variety of communication mediums to inform patients about campaigns, e.g. flu, to ensure optimal access. Using posters in the Practice, emailing, SMS and writing were preferred.

When asked about the use of radio, on 35% listened to local radio, the most popular being Spire FM. However, 58% thought that having information about local health services announced on the radio would be useful.

Practice newsletters were popular with 86% of respondents stating they like to read them. The preferred method of receiving these was by email, closely followed by post, and then by collecting a copy from the Practice. Only 15% wished to access the newsletter from the website.

Just over half the respondents knew that their Practice had a website, and of these 42 patients (33%) had looked at the website. Of these patients, 90% had found the website useful, 75% stated it was easy to use, and 67% easy to find.

SECTION 4: Other

All respondents were asked to add any other comments. These have been categorised according to Practice:

Avon Valley Practice: No additional comments received

Barcroft Medical Practice: No additional comments received

Bourne Valley Practice : No additional comments received

Castle Practice: 5% of respondents would like to be able to book appointments online                       

Cross Plains Surgery: No additional comments received

St Melor House Surgery: No additional comments received

RECOMMENDATIONS

In order to improve the provision of local healthcare, the Practice Managers reviewed the results of the survey on 27th January 2012 and proposed the following recommendations to address the issues raised through the survey:

A&E attendances

1. To contact patients, if appropriate, following receipt of information about A&E attendance, to use alternative services should a similar problem arise again

2. To improve the depth and breadth of information provided to patients about self care and the use of A&E. This includes encouraging patients to contact their GP or OOH service prior to A&E attendance unless there is a life threatening accident or emergency.

Communication

1. To publish practice website information widely throughout the local area, including in local village / parish magazines.

2. To write and circulate a Practice Newsletter at least quarterly to all patients

3. To advertise the use of SMS for practice updates

4. To revise new patient registration forms to collect email data to distribute general practice information

5. To publicise GP telephone availability

Next steps

Please provide feedback about these recommendations to Heather Simpson by 28th February 2012 so that amendments can be made. Following receipt of feedback, a final report will be written and distributed to all patients.

Many thanks,

Heather Simpson

telephone: 01980 625 314

email: h.simpson2@nhs.net

About This Form

Note that by using this form, you will be sending information about yourself across the Internet. Whilst every effort is made to keep this information secure, you should be aware that we cannot offer any guarantees of absolute privacy. If this matter concerns you then you should use another method to notify us of your comment.

Your IP address (38.107.179.231) will be sent with your communication. In rare cases where abuse or criminal activity can be shown to have taken place this may be used by the authorities to trace you.