Survey News
Some patients may have seen the recent Daily Mail survey named How bad is your GP? I am very pleased to report our PPG (Patient Participation Group) have celebrated the achievements of Wistaria & Milford with the statement below and for us may be How good is your GP have been a better headline!
Patients are presenting with more complex issues and attend frequently, with nationally 32 million primary care appointments each month in 2022, compared to 28.5 million in 2019. Much of the GP workload is hidden and patients (and our press) only see the tip of the iceberg and don’t realise other aspects of the job.
Our Practice list size continues to grow, and we monitor our boundary very carefully as we are contractually obliged to register patients in our catchment area and cannot close our list. We monitor list sizes carefully and will hopefully have news of some new GPs joining the practice soon. We are very fortunate to live in a beautiful area where GPs want to move to, and work in. Nationally there are falling numbers of GPs and nurses and in certain areas because of retirements, burnout, and lack of student doctors some practices are at risk of collapse.
As our patients are aware we have added more admin & nursing staff members to the team during the last year. In addition, we introduced our new triage system in June 2022, with additional premises to accommodate our urgent & “on the day” work. Asking patients to wait on the phone, then saying we’re full and to ring back or having to wait several weeks for a routine appointment was difficult for patients and for the practice team. Whilst no system is perfect, we know from patient feedback the changes we have made ensure medically urgent cases are our priority and those with different needs can be signposted to our pharmacy teams, MSK practitioners etc.
Please be aware we do not book GP appointments more than two weeks ahead. Unfortunately, DNA’s (did not attend) are creeping in again and wasting valuable GP appointments. This feels a very backward step especially as we increased the duration of routine GP appointments to 15 minutes. We respectfully ask patients to cancel their appointments if they cannot attend once booked.
Jan Lamont, Practice Manager
GP – Patient Survey 2022 – Wistaria and Milford Surgeries The survey identified areas of very good performance. In fact, all areas assessed exceeded both Hampshire & Isle of Wight Integrated Care System (ICS) and national levels of achievement which is very commendable. For example, the response to the question about overall patient experience result was 89% satisfied where the ICS and national figure was 72%. There were a few areas where performance was less good e.g., 69% satisfied when making an appointment. Since the survey was undertaken Wistaria and Milford Surgery has introduced a completely new approach to making an appointment with the introduction of the Klinik triage system. In July 2022 the Iris Suite at Wistaria Surgery was made available for same day urgent appointments booked through the Klinik system. It is hoped that this has made considerable difference to the overall patient experience of making an appointment. We feel the survey results are a true reflection of the hard work and commitment shown by all the staff at the 2 surgeries, particularly during such a difficult period. The GP Patient Survey is an independent survey run by Ipsos on behalf of NHS England. To see the whole survey results follow the link – https://www.gp-patient.co.uk/about
Michael Snell, PPG Chair