Murton Medical Group 20 Woods Terrace East Murton, Seaham County Durham SR7 9AB Tele: 0191 517 0170 e-mail: [email protected]

Murton Medical Group has been present in the village since the 1920’s. Over this time the practice has steadily grown from a single handed practice to the three partners and three salaried doctor practice it is today. The practice currently provides primary care services to approximately 7500 patients living in Murton, Hawthorn Village and Dalton-le-Dale. We are open Monday – Friday excluding public and Bank Holidays between the hours of 8am – 6pm for both GP and Nurse appointments. We are open until 8pm every Tuesday evening as part of out extended hours contact with NEPCSA.

We re-established our Patient Reference Group in 2011 as part of the Patient Reference Group Enhanced Service. We feel that it is important for the practice to gain the views of our patients on the services we currently offer and services that we may wish to offer in future. At the time of sign-up, the Practice was undergoing a massive re-development which was to dramatically improve not only the Practice facilities but also the services we were able to deliver. As a practice we decided that it would be best to have a virtual forum for 2011-12 with the aim of both virtual and face to face Forum in 2012-13. Throughout the 2011-12 period, I have not only made e-mail contact with our patients but have also spoken to them on the telephone and written to them in the post.

To seek members for this group we used various methods. Our first step was to write to our previous members and invite them to once again become involved working alongside staff at the Surgery. Our previous Forum had always been very helpful and supportive of the Surgery, however due to a shortage of space within the old premises, it became unfeasible to hold these meetings. I advertised the Patient Reference Group in the Waiting area and around the Local area. Posters were sent to various businesses including the Glebe Centre, the local Library, Church Halls, shops on the Local High Street, Cafes in the area etc. We also posted leaflets through doors of patients who are harder to reach, in areas within Murton that have a high geographical area of elderly residents, and area’s that we typically have working families living to hopefully hit as wide a range of patients as possible (please note that this was done with a local knowledge of the area and not based on factual evidence). An advert was published in Local press advertising GP Patient Groups and we placed information and sign-up forms within the Patient booklet. We also added information to the Practice website and made small slips that were attached to prescriptions.

We received interest from a number of patients registered within the Practice, I then wrote out to these patients with more information and asked them to complete a patient contact form if they wished to be a member of the group. Our group consists of both male and female white British patients registered at the Practice. Our group is representative of various ages these being between the ages of 17-24, 24-34, 34- 44, 45-54 and 75-84 years. We are also fortunate enough to have a member of our Forum also be an enthusiastic member of our local MAB (Monitoring and Advisory board).

Patient Representatives

2.5 2 2

1.5 1 1 1 1 1

0.5

Number of members 0 0 0 0 0-16 17-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75+ Age of Patient

We felt that it would be appropriate to wait for completion of the Surgery before we began the questionnaire, this way we would gain more appropriate feedback from the patients. The Surgery was opened the week of Christmas 2011 and the Survey began the following month.

From information received on the contact form we were able to see the areas that these patients felt we should focus our attention on. We referred to these points when developing our patient questionnaire. Copies of the questionnaire were sent to our Forum members for approval and agreement that it was representative of the issues we as a group believed were to be priority. The survey was then sent back to all members for completion. We took similar steps to those above in ensuring we got feedback from as many areas as possible.

The questionnaires were predominantly completed by patients who attended the Surgery. There is a poster advertising the questionnaire within the Waiting area and the Reception team have been asking patients if they would mind completing these for us on attendance.

A lot of these were taken but not all have been returned. We are very aware that there are a number of patients registered with the Practice that do not attend the Surgery and wanted to give these patients the opportunity to have a say on the Services provided within the Surgery regularly. To try and gain feedback form patients who are harder to reach, I posted questionnaires out to areas within Murton that have a high geographical area of elderly residents, and area’s that we typically have working families living (please note that this was done with a local knowledge of the area and not based on factual evidence).

We hand posted questionnaires through random doors within the Village to hopefully hit as wide a range of patients as possible. All questionnaires were sent with a cover letter and a stamped addressed envelope to return their completed questionnaires. I received a total of 13 back via post, others may have been handed back to our reception staff.

After collating the results from those handed back and have the outcome detailed below, I was slightly surprised at the response to the Survey and had hoped for a higher uptake than we actually got. In total we have now received 85 completed questionnaires. These will be available to patients until the end of March. Of the 85 completed questionnaires, I was pleased that overall the Surgery received positive feedback and staff were pleased that our patients are happy with the services that we provide. In this report I will discuss the more significant results received and the action plan we have devised from this.

Of the questionnaires completed,

Patient Questionnires

70 61 60 50 40 30 24 20

Number received Number 10 0 Females Males Sex

35 30 31 30

25

20 16 15

10 8 Number Received Number 5 0 0 Under 16 16-44 Yrs 45-64 Yrs 65-74 Yrs 75 Yrs + Age

On looking at the survey it was apparent that generally patients gave positive feedback in most areas. We gained particularly high feed back in the following areas;

• Satisfaction with both GP and Nurse at their last appointment . Answers were mostly ‘very satisfied’ with no one actually marking ‘dissatisfied’. Great feedback for the clinical team.

• The cleanliness of the Surgery . 98.9 % of people believed the Surgery to be ‘Very clean’.

• Helpful Reception Team. Our patients believe that the Receptionists are ‘very helpful’ or ‘fairly helpful’. This was a great boost for the team who were delighted with such high feedback.

• Opening hours of the Surgery. We were pleased to see that the highest proportion of patients surveyed were very satisfied with the opening times of the Surgery. Offering a later surgery for both GP and Nurse will have hopefully made seeing a Doctor or Nurse easier, particularly after core working hours.

• Making an appointment with a Practice Nurse. The majority of patients found it ‘very easy’ or ‘fairly easy’ to make an appointment with the Practice Nurse. Only 1 patient out of the 85 thought that this was ‘not at all easy’.

Area’s that we did not do as well in were as follows;

• Patients ability to see a particular GP. As a team, we are aware that there are particular GP’s that patients prefer to see. Because of this, the GP’s clinic does book up quickly. Unfortunately we are limited as to what we are able to do to improve this as it is solely down to patient choice. On a more positive note, the majority of patients did agree that if they are willing to see ANY GP, they can do so on the same day, with the next day being second most popular answer.

• Waiting time for the GP is 5-15 minutes . This was the most common answer with over 50% patients ticking this. ‘Normally on time’ and ‘Less than 5 minutes’ being popular answers. This has been an area that we have gained poor feedback on in past questionnaires. Although we are unable to make a big change in waiting times for patients, we hope that by introducing breaks and altering Surgery times may help reduce this. We also think that educating patients may give them further understanding at to why the GP may be running late.

• Help patients to understand the Complaints procedure. A lot of patients were unsure of the Practice Complaints procedure and we were marked down on this question.

There were also a lot of comments made in addition to the specific questions that we asked. Some of these included;

“ Longer period of time to book appointments”

“ Plan of building for patients – on wall in reception area”

“ By insisting patients switch off their mobiles”

“Make waiting area more suitable”

It was these comments that we felt we should pay attention too as we believe they will make the patient experience more enjoyable.

During the process of the patient questionnaire, one of our Forum members brought an issue to our attention that the Surgery also had concerns over. Our Extended hours were usually held on a Monday evening for both our GP and Nurse. As this was on a Monday, we found that bank holidays had an impact on the hours we were providing, especially over Christmas and New Year.

After listening too the patients concerns and speaking with the Practice Management, we decided that it would be in the interest of the patients to move the night in which we offer this. I e-mailed these concerns over to the NEPCSA and it was accepted that our Extended Hours contract be amended to suit. We hope that this will be of real benefit over the coming year and that the bank holidays will cause less disruption. I fed this information back to the Forum who were fully supportive of this decision.

On reflection of the Patient Questionnaire and the feedback received from this, we believe the following action plan can help us improve over the coming year;

When we will do Action How we can do this this What we hope to achieve Waiting time We have spoken to the GP's Alterations to GP's running to appointment time and for GP about the comments made surgeries have giving the patients a greater and feedback from the already taken place understanding as to why their GP is questionnaire. We have and we will monitor running late. began to make alterations this to see if within surgeries to see if this improvements are helps with time keeping made. We will hold issues. Some of these a meeting for the alterations include adding Reference Group in breaks during surgeries and April 2012. We will altering the on-call GP's start designing a sessions to accommodate for poster to put up any emergencies that may within the waiting arise. We also hope that by area. displaying information to the patients this will educate them on the possible reasons for the GP's to be running behind within their Surgeries. We will liaise with the Patient Reference group to come up with the most appropriate way of getting the information to the patients and how to word this.

There is currently a poster At our Reference within the waiting area Group meeting we Patients being aware of the advising patients of the will look at the complaints procedure. practice complaints current information Help patients procedure. This needs and look at how to to looking at to see how it can improve this. Our understand be improved and better new Practice the advise the patients of this. website is currently Complaints We can also add this under construction procedure information to the Practice and we will ensure website for patients to access that the information as and when needed. is available before it goes live.

Help patients As we now have a much Temporary signage Patients are clearer on the building and visitors bigger Surgery, patients and will be up before the layout. better visitors can easily be daunted end of March 2012. understand when attending. We have Management will the lay out of been made aware through make enquiries into the New the patient forum that a more permanent Surgery signage is not very good at solution. We will building. present. In order to improve discuss appropriate this, we will display a plan of signage at the the building within the waiting Reference Group area. We will also look into meeting. ordering signage to go around the building directing patients. We will place temporary signage up within the Public waiting area's. Insisting We will achieve this by We will do this by Patients feel comfortable whilst patients asking receptionists to the end of March waiting in the Surgery. switch off request patients to turn off 2012. mobile mobile telephones whilst in telephones the Surgery, we will also add when in the a message to the ticker public waiting messages that scroll along areas. the TV's in each of the waiting areas.

Making As the building is recently These ideas will be Making the public waiting area's waiting area opened, we have not added a discussed with the comfortable for patients. more suitable lot of décor to the walls within group and taken any of the public area's. We further once a have had some ideas from decision has been the Surgery team of what to made. put up in the waiting areas', examples of these are old photographs of how Murton once looked and also getting local children to design pictures to put up.

Higher On feedback from the We will go through A shortened more inviting uptake of questionnaire, it was clear the questionnaire questionnaire. next patient that patients felt it was too with the group and questionnaire long. This is one of the see if there are any reasons we feel we did not questions that need get higher numbers returned. not be in the survey. We can also look how changing the layout i.e. text size, borders etc may reduce the length of this.

As you can see, a lot of the area’s we hope to improve on, mean educating the patients attending the Surgery. With help from the Forum, we hope to ensure that information is available and clear for patients.

A copy of the action plan has been e-mailed out to our Reference Group members for their comments. A copy of the e-mail and report sent to the members is also attached. I have received feedback from members of the group. Of the feedback received, the members are happy with the survey results and agree with the actions listed in the plan. They are keen to begin meetings within the Surgery and feel that this will enable them to become more pro-active over the coming year.

Some members have said that they will be unable to attend meetings however are still keen to be e- mailed feedback and actions arising from these meetings. We will also engage with these virtual patients before making any changes suggested by attending members.

The Reference Group have a meeting scheduled for Friday 27 th April 2012. It is at this meeting that we will look at work on our action plan and put together a stable process for ensuring that the group becomes successful. At this meeting we will decide how often we wish to meet and what we feel the group can do going forwards to best serve local residents. Options for this may be a regular newsletter within the waiting area or looking at local support groups that the Surgery can link in with.

We continue to advertise and seek membership to our group and hope that this will develop.

Drs Rangar, Muscat & Lazenby