Patient Participation Group

We would like to know how we can improve our service to you and how you perceive our surgery and staff.

To help us with this, we are setting up a virtual patient participation group so that you can have your say. We will ask the members of this representative group some questions from time to time, such as what you think about our opening times or the quality of the care or service you received. We will contact you via email and keep our surveys succinct so it shouldn’t take too much of your time.

We aim to gather around a hundred patients from as broad a spectrum as possible to get a truly representative sample. We need young people, workers, retirees, people with long term conditions and people from non-British ethnic groups.

PPG Summary and Action Plan March 2016

The surgery has a virtual PPG that operates through email. The practice manager invites patients to sign up through email and strives to establish a group made up of a wide range of patients of different ages and backgrounds.

In order to gather information the practice manager sends a survey to all PPG members consisting of five open questions, that allow the patient to express their opinion as well as covering the topics the manager feels need to be discussed.

The following is a summary and action plan based on the questions:

Are you aware of the surgeries opening hours and what you should do if you are in need of assistance outside of these hours?

Summary: Everybody was aware of this information and it was mentioned that it is available on the website.

Action: A link to Health Help Now has recently been added to the surgery website (on the home page) to provide extra information on local services.

We now have a surgery website (www.stainesroadsurgery.nhs.uk). Have you had a look at the website, if so what is your opinion of it? Do you have any recommendations for improvements?

Summary: Everybody had seen the website. One comment was that it was useful and covers everything, others said that it was easy to navigate.

Action: No action required, however, due to the low usage of the available forms on the practice website, a clearer poster will be developed for the surgery waiting room to advertise these.

The Surgery is now offering online access for appointment booking, prescription ordering and viewing summary records. Have you signed up for this service? If yes, what is your opinion of it? If no, what is your reason for not using the service?

Summary: A majority of the PPG are signed up to this service and find it useful and easy to navigate, particularly for ordering repeat medication. Others mentioned that they knew the service was available, but did not feel the need to use it as they have easy access to the surgery and prefer to visit in person.

Action: Since this discussion the online services site has changed from Vision Online to Patient Services. Therefore, this discussion may need to be re-addressed on the next survey to see how people feel about the changes that have been made.

Further advertising in the waiting room will help to get more patients up and running with this service. It is a great help to have as many patients as possible booking appointments online in order to decrease waiting time on the phone.

Our Friends and Family Test results (See website, latest news) show that a high percentage of patients would recommend the surgery. Do you agree with these results? And have you participated in the test yourself?

Summary: A majority had participated in the FFT survey and agreed with the high recommendation. Those who had not participated also said that they agree with the results on the website.

Action: Ensure as many patients as possible are offered the chance to participate in order to gain a wider range of opinions.

Lastly, please give an overall opinion of how you think we are doing and any recommendations for improvements.

Summary: Overall the comments were mostly very positive, people felt that the surgery is well run, with helpful staff, and it was especially noted that Dr Sarajlic and Prenda (HCA) are very good at what they do and their treatment is always very satisfactory. It was also said that getting appointments is very easy and there are usually availabilities within two days, if not on the day.

It was mentioned by two PPG members that noise in the waiting room can be an issue. The points made regarding this were:

Discussions in the Nurses room can sometimes be heard from the waiting room.
If waiting room is too loud, hearing when the Dr is calling the next patient can be an issue.
Receptionists can be heard on the telephone from the waiting room.

Action: In regards to these three comments, we are in the process of a major refurbishment, which will result in a completely new layout and design of the surgery. Hopefully, the new reception area layout and placement of consulting rooms will result in an improvement in the noise issues. Until the new building is complete we are unsure yet how the Dr will be calling patients in, however, this will be assessed based on the layout of the new building and these comments will be taken into account.

Until the building work is complete, it is important that these issues are noticed and addressed in order to improve the services we provide, therefore these issues have been discussed with staff (individually for now, but will be re-assessed during next practice meeting) and the following plan made:

For the Nurse/HCA to ensure the door to the consulting room is shut, as well as the window that links the room to reception. Also be aware of volume when speaking to a patient in the consulting room.
Receptionists to be aware of who is being called next in a busy waiting room and help Dr to call in next patient.
Receptionists to be aware of volume when speaking on the phone, as well as the information they are saying that can be heard by the waiting room. NO CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION SHOULD BE GIVEN OUT OVER THE PHONE.

Thank you to all the members of the PPG who participated in the discussion. If anybody is interested in becoming a member please contact me on: sarah.butler4@nhs.net

Staines Road Surgery PPG Update September 2016

The PPG were asked to provide feedback regarding the current temporary premises of the surgery whilst the building work is being carried out. In particular they were asked to discuss; the layout, if they had found it at all disruptive or if they think it works well as it is, plus any additional feedback or suggestions for the current situation.

Overall feedback was very positive, the systems put in place are working fine and all staff are very helpful and happy despite the current circumstances.

Initially they were issues with patients finding the Drs room, however, patients are now getting used to the layout and signs have been made to assist with this.

Action Plan

Once building work is complete we will meet again to discuss the new surgery and review action plan from previous meeting.

Once again thank you to all the members of the PPG who participated in the discussion. If anybody is interested in becoming a member please contact me on: sarah.butler4@nhs.net

Staines Road Surgery PPG Summary and Action Plan July 2017

In order to gather information the practice manager sends a survey to all PPG members consisting of six open questions, that allow the patient to express their opinion as well as covering the topics the manager feels need to be discussed.

The following is a summary and action plan based on the questions:

Do you have any comments regarding the previous Summary and Action Plan? Do you think all of the issues and actions were properly addressed?

Participants felt that the previous action plan had been properly addresses.

For those that use online services, Since the change from Vision online to Patient Services, how have you found the new site?

Those that had used the site felt it was very good and had no problems.

How are you finding the new premises (if you have been) can you recommend any improvements?

Some participants felt that the new reception area is very open, which can make it difficult to have private conversations with receptionists. There was also a suggestion to re-think the chair layout of the waiting room to make the ‘children’s area’ more separate.

Otherwise participants have been very positive regarding the new surgery, commenting on the good layout and easy access.

One issue from the previous action plan was conversations being heard in the waiting room from the nurses room. Has this improved since moving to the new building?

Noise from the nurses room appears to have been improved in the new surgery. However, reception can still be heard, but receptionists are as discreet as possible and careful not to say anything confidential out loud.

As you may have noticed we have been adding some additional locum sessions to support the growing patient list size. How are you finding getting an appointment? Do you think there is a longer wait than there was in the past?

None of the participants felt that they had a problem getting appointments and felt that the use of locums to cover extra sessions is very useful to the surgery and its patients. Use of the Hub was also praised.

Lastly, please give an overall opinion of how you think we are doing and any recommendations for improvements.

All of the feedback to this question was very positive. Everyone commented on the surgery team and how friendly and helpful they are. Also the new surgery, the layout and the screen in reception were mentioned and received very positive feedback.

Summary:

Overall the remarks were mostly positive. With some mentions of confidentiality issues in the new reception layout.

All the actions from the previous meeting had been dealt with.

Comments regarding the layout were also positive, with one suggestion to make children’s section slightly more separated from the rest of the waiting area.

Action:

Receptionists to discuss ways in which confidentiality can be improved with practice manager. For example, calls can be transferred to phone on back desk, or taken on mobile in the staff room for extra confidentiality. Also, be aware of patients in waiting room when confidential matters discussed, if necessary and possible, arrange to discuss later in the day when no one is in waiting room.
Practice Manager and Dr Sarajlic to discuss possibility of re-arranging waiting room area.

Once again thank you to all the members of the PPG who participated in the discussion. If anybody is interested in becoming a member please contact me on: sarah.butler4@nhs.net

PPG MINUTES 12.02.2018

The following is a summary and action plan based on the questions:

Comments on previous action plan.

No comments, everyone happy that all actions have been complete.

Extended Hours

The main topic of discussion for this meeting is the possibility of splitting the days when the surgery has extended hours over two or three days rather than having it all on one.

The options are 1 1 ½ slot, 2 45min slots or 3 ½ hour slots, outside of normal opening hours.

Everyone agreed that it would be useful to have different options of times for working patients, as not everyone can make it on the current day (Monday), it is also difficult having extended hours on just a Monday due to weeks when there is a bank holiday and lastly it is difficult for staff working on Mondays having an 1 ½ slot as it makes the day too long.

It was agreed in discussions with staff and PPG that it would be useful to have two late evenings (Monday and Thursday) with extended hours from 6.30-7.15. There was one suggestion of weekend opening, however, whilst this would be useful, we do not have the staff to cover this option. This will be confirmed with Dr Sarajlic and Dr Hunter who will be working one evening each.

Recommendations

Everyone was very pleased with the service overall.

There was a recommendation made regarding Travel Vaccination services and the way the appointments are run. I will conduct a Practice Meeting to see if anything can be done to improve this.

Action Plan

To discuss with Dr Sarajlic and Dr Hunter the change in extended hours.
Practice manager to meet with nurse to figure out best way to structure travel vaccine clinic.

Once again thank you to all the members of the PPG who participated in the discussion. If anybody is interested in becoming a member please contact me on: sarah.butler4@nhs.net

PPG Summary and Action Plan 11.18

The following is a summary and action plan based on the questions:

The previous PPG action plan discussed our changes to extended hours (Monday and Thursday till 19.15). Have you used these later appointments? Do you feel that splitting the extended hours over two nights rather than one has been beneficial?

A majority of the patients that answered had not used the extended hours, however many stated that they believed it makes more sense to have two options of late nights rather than one. Those that had used the service said that it was extremely useful for working people to have two options of evening appointments that they can use.

The structure of the Travel clinic was also discussed in the previous summary. Since then we have had a change in staffing, therefore the Nurse appointments have changed slightly. If you have had any Travel Vaccines in recent months, was the system straight forward and satisfactory?

Unfortunately nobody that answered had used the travel clinic, and a small amount were not aware of it. At the moment, due to a change in staff, we are going to be without a travel clinic for a short time. Once we are fully staffed again we will better advertise this service so that patients are more aware of it.

We recently conducted a patient survey via text message. Did you receive this message? If so did you feel this was a constructive way to conduct surveys?

Most of the patients who answered felt that this was a constructive way to conduct a survey. Some felt that many patients may mistake the text for scam and ignore it; although this is a possibility and may explain the large number of patients that did not respond; we also try to be as clear as possible in our emails and texts that it is a message from the surgery. There is also the suggestion box in reception, so that anyone that misses out on surveys has the opportunity to express their opinion.

A small number of patients stated that they did not receive the survey, this would most likely be because they are not signed up to receive text messages from us. If you are one of these people and would like to receive texts, please contact reception and they will sort this out for you.

Please see below results of the survey:

Question 1- How easy is it to get through to the Practice?

Very Easy

Easy

Neither

Difficult

Question 2- How would you rate your experiences at the Practice?

Excellent

Good

Satisfactory

Unsatisfactory

For Question one, 92% of patients who answered said that they found it Very Easy or Easy to get through to the Practice.

For Question two, 93% of patients who answered rated their experience as Excellent or Good.

Do you agree with the results and believe they are a true reflection of the Practice?

We are pleased to say that everyone that answered agreed with question two of the survey, and agreed that their experiences at the surgery have been good/excellent.

Although a majority of patients agreed with the result of Question one, some felt that it can be quite difficult to get through at certain times of day. We do try and best to keep the phone lines free as often as possible. We would recommend that, unless you have an urgent request or need an on the day appointment, you try to call later in the day as this is when the lines are more likely to be free.

Lastly, please give an overall opinion of how you think we are doing and any recommendations for improvements.

Overall the comments for this question were very positive. Many people described the service as friendly and professional.

There was a suggestion of an evening flu clinic, for those that cannot make the mornings. Although we believe this is a very good idea, we currently have a staffing issue that prevents this. We are hoping to recruit more staff in the New Year and this may be something we will look into in the future for the 2019/20 flu season.

Lastly, it has been pointed out that the door exit button is often confused with the light switch in the same area. Although the button is currently labelled, it is perhaps not clear enough. We will ensure both switches are labelled and the door exit label made clearer.

Actions:

Once travel clinic Is back up and running, advertise more clearly to patients.
Consider evening flu appointments for next year’s flu season.
Make clearer sign for door exit button.

Once again thank you to all the members of the PPG who participated in the discussion. If anybody is interested in becoming a member please contact me on: sarah.butler4@nhs.net