Emmer Green Surgery Patient Participation Report (and Patient Survey) 2014

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1 Patient Participation Report (and Patient Survey) If quality is to be at the heart of everything we do, it must be understood from the perspective of Lord Darzi, NHS next stage review the patients Why form a Patient Reference Group (PRG)? Several reports commissioned over the last decade have re-enforced the theme that patient involvement is key for the future of the NHS, none more so than the Health Bill. Over the past 20 years health services in many EU countries have been increasingly concerned with involving patients in health policy decisions. By involving the public and extending choice, decisions can be improved, the range of views obtained vastly widened, increased acceptance of policy decisions can be achieved; leading to people taking more responsibility for their health. With scientific advances and improved survival rates and condition management, more people are likely to require ongoing care/treatment. The cost and increased demand is likely to outrun available resources, making it ever more important to fully involve patients to achieve the highest level of care and shape future policies and priorities. For the vast majority involvement in healthcare begins with their GP practice. Increased patient involvement is vital to the future of the NHS. Who is in the group? We began recruiting to the surgery Patient Reference Group at the beginning of October 2011, by March 2012 we had recruited 62 patients (38 women and 24 men) to the practice s virtual group. This was a great response to our invitation for members but we wanted to progress further. So in summer 2012 we decided to start having face to face meetings and try to form a regular patient participation group to work alongside our virtual patient group. Our first meeting was held in June 2012, it was well attended and the feedback we had from those who came was very positive. Since then we have been meeting every couple of months, discussing various topics from parking and issues with the layout of our reception area to the changes to the out of hours service and CCG progress. We also have a section for any feedback from the Patient Voice meetings that one of our group members attends along with the Practice Manager every month, this group is made up of a patient representative from each of the practices in our CCG. This is a direct channel of communication to and from the CCG to the patient groups in each practice. We currently have a core group of patients (approximately 10) who attend our Practice meetings. We invite every member of our virtual patient group which currently has 53 patients involved and would encourage anyone to attend as and when they want to for example when there is an item on the agenda of particular interest to them. Meetings are held in the evening to allow those that work to attend. We have recently finalised our Patient Group Terms of Reference and have formally elected our first Chairperson, which is great progress for the group. Although progress and response from those patients involved over the last year has been excellent we want to continue to try to include as wide a range of patients as possible, including frequent and infrequent service users, and patients of all ages and backgrounds. We would welcome anyone who wishes to be involved. The demographic of our virtual patient group is largely representational of the practice s patient demographic. On joining the virtual group we asked patients certain questions to try and ensure we have a fair representation of patients involved. These questions were not compulsory and some group members chose not to answer. We would like to widen the age range of those patients attending the face to face meetings to try and ensure we have a representative group of patients present during any discussions. This is something we will continue to focus on this year. The patient survey - the last 2 years Following the patient survey we carried out in 2012 we wanted to publicise our online services more, our Practice website and the various facilities and health information within it. We also wanted to implement a Practice newsletter and improve communication to patients when the Doctor/Nurse was running late with their clinic. These were our focus areas for 2012, however we continue to publicise our online services and the Practice website as much as possible, which holds not only information about the Practice but also information about what to do if you need medical attention when the Surgery is closed, and useful advice on the treatment of minor illness

2 including links to the NHS Choices website. The first edition of the newsletter was issued in December 2012, with a further edition produced every 3 months since. Ideas for content are invited from patients and the Patient Group. The newsletter is made available from the Surgery waiting room and on the Practice website. We also re-instigated the use of information boards put on the front reception desk to inform patients when a clinician was running late. Following last year s (2013) patient survey we set some areas of potential improvement to focus on for the year ahead based on the results, they were: 1. 32% of people had said it was not very easy to book an appointment in advance, this warranted further investigation to ensure we are operating as efficiently as possible with those resources we have available. To this end we began an audit of our appointment system, asking people what their ideal day/time of appointment was, trying to look at times of particularly high demand and ensuring we have sufficient cover at these times. This audit is currently underway and is being conducted a week at a time when we are fully staffed to cope with the additional time this may take. 2. A consistent problem the practice has is patients not attending for booked appointments and not contacting the practice to cancel so the appointment could be offered to someone else. The 2013 survey highlighted that the main reason people do this is that they forget about the appointment. We have been trying to highlight the importance of keeping appointments throughout the year via the practice newsletter/waiting room notice board. We are now looking at the possibility of introducing text appointment reminders for patients which we should be able to do with the new clinical system we had installed at the end of November. 2 The patient survey 2014 (& results) At the Patient Group meeting in December 2013 the survey for this year was discussed, and areas of focus were agreed. There had also been discussion at the Patient Voice Meetings about NHS 111 and how aware people are of it, it was suggested that we include a question about this in our survey. In previous surveys it has been beneficial to keep the survey to approximately questions anything longer could be detrimental to the effectiveness of the survey. We felt the quality of the questions was key. The survey was conducted over five weeks from the 27 th January 2014 until the end of February The survey was offered to patients attending/visiting the surgery during this time, it was available for completion via the website and multiple copies were given to each Doctor and Practice Nurse, we also gave copies to our District Nurses to circulate to our housebound patients when they visited them. The survey was advertised throughout the surgery. We had a total of 406 responses; this is just over 4% of our practice population, which was fantastic.

3 3 Survey Results 2014 Number of Responses: 406 Please note that not all responses will total 100% - this is due to some participants failing to answer each question. 1 a) How easy do you usually find it to get through to someone at the practice on the telephone? Very Easy 15% Fairly Easy 36% Acceptable 23% Not very easy 23% Don't know/haven't tried 1% 1b) How quickly has your call been answered? Very 21% Fairly 34% Acceptable 26% Not very 15% Don't know/haven't tried 0% No response 4%

4 4 1c) Would a telephone system telling you where in the queue you were be better than getting an engaged tone when it is busy? Yes 74% No 22% 2a) Do you believe there is a confidentiality issue at the front reception desk? Yes 36% No 59%

5 5 2b) We made some changes to the layout of the front reception desk some months ago (moved the check-in screen and put a board up between the front desk and the waiting area), do you feel this has helped to protect confidentiality at the front desk? Yes 65% No 24% 3 Are you aware that the practice has a Patient Participation Group? (You can either get involved in the regular meetings or via the group, if you would like more information on how to get involved in the group, pls see our website Yes 36% No 60% No response 4%

6 6 4a) Are you aware of NHS 111 and what it is for? Yes 66% No 19% I have heard the number but I don't know when to use it 11% No response 4% 4b) If you have experience of using NHS 111, how many times have you used it? (please enter number) Only 13 patients said they had any experience of using NHS Please let us know how satisfied you are with the following: Medical Care (doctors and nurses) Very 76% Fairly 16% Acceptable 3% Not Very 1%

7 7 Access to emergency appointments Very 37% Fairly 24% Acceptable 12% Not very 8% Access to routine appointments Very 27% Fairly 32% Acceptable 18% Not very 18%

8 8 Facilities Very 50% Fairly 24% Acceptable 13% Not very 0% Access into and around the building Very 53% Fairly 15% Acceptable 16% Not very 6%

9 9 How helpful do you find our Reception staff? Very 58% Fairly 22% Acceptable 12% Not very 4% If you have used NHS 111, how satisfied were you with it? Very 13% Fairly 7% Acceptable 1% Not very 1%

10 10 6 Overall how would you describe your experience of the surgery? Very good 47% Good 34% Fair 11% Poor 1% Very poor 0% No response 7% We would like to thank everyone for their contributions.

11 11 The next step (Action Plan) Following the survey, we are keen to respond to those areas identified as needing further attention. The survey results have been supplied to the patient group and suggestions for actions were made. The following points have been agreed. 1. With 23% of patients asked saying that they don t find it very easy to get through to someone on the telephone we need to look at how we can improve this. Whilst we may not be able to increase the resources we have we may be able to find a way to manage them better. 74% of patients also said that having a system telling them where they were in the queue would be better than getting an engaged tone when they ring the surgery. The possibility of an automated system that would allow this needs to be looked into % of patients felt there is still a confidentiality issue at the front reception desk and are concerned that other patients will overhear your conversation with the receptionist, although 65% felt that the changes we have already made to try and help this issue have been an improvement. We need to look to see if there is anything else we can do in this area % of survey respondents were unaware that the practice has a Patient Participation Group. This needs to be tackled, we need to promote the group as much as possible to as wide a range of patients as possible so that they all have the opportunity to get involved should they wish to be. The response to this year s patient survey and recruitment to the patient reference group overall has been incredibly positive and we would like to thank everyone for their contributions. To have so many people offer positive feedback of their overall experience of the surgery is very much appreciated. We will be sharing some of the very positive comments we have received through the survey on our website ( Helena Jones Practice Manager