The Lakes Medical Centre

Patient Reference Group Report

March 2014

Produced for the Patient Participation Directed Enhanced Service 2013/ 14

Patient Reference Group Report 2013/ 2014 – The Lakes Medical Centre, Swinton

Report contains;

1. Introduction

2. Process used to form the PRG

3. Profile of the Practice population & the PRG

4. Actions taken to ensure PRG is representative of Practice population

5. Steps taken to identify priority areas

6. The Practice survey

7. Analysis of the survey results

8. Action plan

1.Introduction

The Lakes Medical Practice is situated in the Swinton area of Salford, Greater Manchester. It has a list size of 8406registered patients.

The purpose of the Patient Reference Group (PRG) is to ensure patients have a forum to comment on services provided by the Practice. It should also allow patients to become involved in decisions regarding the range and quality of services provided and in any changes to these services. Such services include those provided by the Practice and those commissioned by the Practice either directly or indirectly via Salford Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

2. Process used to form PRG

The Practice began to advertise its intent to form a PRG group in October 2013. Methods used were as follows;

· Posters in the waiting room

· Flyers handed out to patients attending the reception desk

· Information on the practice website – www.thelakesmedicalcentre.co.uk

· Direct – talking to patients attending surgery

· Annual Saturday flu clinic – a method of contacting a large number of patients attending on one day

A preliminary meeting was held on 14th November 2013 with those patients who had expressed an interest in becoming part of the group. The options of face to face meetings or a virtual group with email communication were discussed. The group decided they would prefer to have regular face to face meetings.

In order to reach the wider patient population all minutes from meetings are published on the Practice website. In addition, those patients unable to attend meetings are able to communicate and contribute by email as part of the group.

We continue to advertise the group which is still open to new members using a number of different methods. These include waiting room posters, the Practice website, a message on the waiting room TV screen and flyers included with new patient registration forms.

The current PRG comprises 27 registered patients (0.3 % of the Practice population). The group have elected a chairperson, vice chair and secretary.

3. Profile of Patient Representative Group

The graphs below show the age, sex and ethnicity distribution of our PRG members compared to our Practice population.

Age profile

It can be seen that within the PRG there is a higher proportion of members within the age groups 55- 64 years & 65 – 74 years when compared to our Practice population. Those in the > 74 years and < 34 years are currently underrepresented in the PRG when compared with our Practice population.

Sex profile

The graph above shows the sex distribution of the PRG compared to that of our Practice population. Our Practice population has a slightly higher proportion of female patients (52%) compared to male patients (48%). The sex profile of the PRG is equivalent to that of our Practice population.

Ethnicity profile

Unfortunately the Practice data for ethnicity is not complete. It is currently held for only 5% of the Practice population. This data has been shown on the graph above. However, as the data held was incomplete it was compared against Ethnicity Data recorded in the 2001 Census for the Swinton North Ward

The graph shows that the population of the Swinton North Ward is primarily of white ethnicity (British& Irish). The graph shows that the PRG is broadly representative of the Swinton North population.

4. Actions taken to ensure our PRG is representative of the practice population

2013 / 14 was the first year of our PRG. Following formation of the group and analysis of the demographic data, we realised that those in younger and older age groups, both male and female were under represented. We discussed methods of focusing on and engaging these groups. We have asked the administrative and clinical teams to particularly encourage patients aged 17 – 34 years and > 75 years to join the PRG.

Additional methods of engaging patients in the younger age groups and those with small children include:

· Flyers for the community midwife

· Flyers for the health visiting team

· Poster at the local sure start centre

· Invite new parents at 1st immunisations/ 8 week baby checks

Those patients in the age group > 75 years and the housebound are currently underrepresented in our PRG. A number of patients in our PRG are carers.

Additional methods of engaging patients in these groups include:

· Direct invitation to those on our Practice carers register

· Attaching a small flyer to prescriptions for housebound patients

· Try and engage older patients on home visits GPs, Practice Nurses & Assistant Practitioners

· Flyers given to sheltered housing wardens.

· Posters displayed in local sheltered housing complexes

· Information to Nursing Home (NH) and Residential Home (RH) managers

It should be noted however that the Practice does not serve a large number of nursing home residents due to existence of a separate Salford care homes practice.

5. Steps taken to identify priority issues

Initial meetings with the PRG members focused on identifying priority issues. Those identified by the group were;

· appointment booking

· telephones

· appointment reminder systems

· Practice website

Following identification of the priority areas the next step was to design a survey to consult with the wider patient population.

It was also decided to use the survey as an opportunity to obtain opinions from the Practice population regarding other areas such as opening hours.

6. The Practice Survey

We discussed as a group some of the well validated surveys e.g. General Practice Assessment Questionnaire (GPAQ)and The GP Patient Survey. The PRG decided that they would like to use some of the existing well validated questions together with some of their own questions which related to the priority areas identified.

The final set of questions was agreed at a PRG meeting07.01.14. It was decided to use the Survey Monkey Company (www.surveymonkey.com) to collate and analyse responses. One of the group members entered the questions onto the survey monkey website. The group members then undertook the survey to ensure it was user friendly.

Following this pilot we began handing out flyers with a link to our survey at reception. We also handed out paper copies which were completed by patients attending the surgery and then manually entered the onto the survey monkey website. In addition the survey together with a link to survey monkey was advertised on the Practice website.

We received 126 responses. (1.5% of our Practice population). The results of the survey were published on the Practice website.

Results of survey are shown in appendix 1.

7. Analysis of results of the survey

The group met on 13.03.14 to discuss the results of the survey. The overall themes were as follows;

· Appointment booking – currently 78% of patients surveyed are booking appointments by phone & 3% online. A slightly lower percentage (60%) would prefer to book by phone with a higher percentage (23%) preferring to book online.

· Telephones - additional comments showed that difficulties exist when trying to book appointments first thing in the morning. Time taken to get through to reception staff by phone showed some significant delays with 52 % of those surveyed waiting longer than 5 minutes.

· Reception- a total of 80 % of respondents rated this as excellent, very good or good. 11 % rated reception as satisfactory. 8 % rated reception as poor or very poor.

· Opening times - a significant majority (90%) of the patients surveyed found the current opening times of the practice convenient. The current opening times are shown in appendix 1.

· Website - knowledge of existence of practice website was 60% of those surveyed.

· Reminders - 71% of those surveyed choose text message as their preferred method of appointment reminder

8. Action Plan

The survey results were discussed at the most recent PRG meeting, 13/03/14. An action plan was then developed and is shown in the table below. (Appendix 2)

This was circulated to group members. The PRG secretary collated responses to the action plan. Those who commented were in agreement with the plan although it was noted that increasing online appointments would impact on the number of appointments available to book by telephone / in person unless there was additional capacity.

Appendices

1. Practice Opening Hours

Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday / Friday / Saturday / Sunday
Core Hours / 08:00 – 18:30 / 08:00 –
18:30 / 08:00 – 18:30 / 08:00 –
18:30 / 08:00 – 18:30 / Nil / Nil
Extended Hours / 18:30 – 19:30 / 18:30 – 19:30 / 18:30 – 19:30 / 18:30 –
19:30 / Nil / Nil / Nil

2. Action Plan PRG 2014

Survey finding / Aim / Actions / Review date
40% patients surveyed unaware Practice has a website / Increase visibility of website / Add website address to;
· All correspondence from surgery
· Practice staff email signature
· Prescriptions
Difficulty in getting through to Practice by phone especially first thing in morning / Reduce time patients wait for telephone calls to be answered / · Review reception staffing arrangements
· Increase numbers of staff working from 08:00 to ease pressure on phone lines
· Increase online booking of appointments
23% of patients surveyed would prefer to book appointments on line / Increase availability of online appointments / · Increase number of online appointments per GP surgery from 1 to 2 initially
71% patients surveyed would like to receive text reminders for appointments / Consider use of text reminders, initially for longer PN chronic disease review appointments / · Practice to look at feasibility of providing this service and how it would link in with Vision appointments system
Difficulty in obtaining GP appointments both urgent & routine / Consider use of GP telephone triage / · Currently triaging cancellation list
· Consider expanding this service