PROFILE OF MEMBERS OF PATIENT REFERENCE GROUP THERE ARE

You Said

We Found

What Can We Do

If you need to see a Doctor URGENTLY on the day is this possible?

58% of the patients surveyed know that they can see a Doctor if they need to be seen URGENTLY. If all routine appointments have gone and you need to be seen on the day you will be put on a triage list and will be contacted by the Doctor on Call.

It is not always possible to see the G.P. of your choice but if your need is URGENT you should see the doctor available. We have more appointments available this year as we have 2 new Partners and a GP Registrar all working 4 days a week.

Can you book appointments in advance?

We have appointments available up to 8 weeks in advance on our system. These are subject to availability as we have no control with regard to who books or how often patient’s book appointments to be seen and this is purely down to the demands of our practice population.

We cannot refuse a request to pre-book an appointment if we have it available and we can’t limit appointments to patients who book frequently or by any means. If all patients only booked appointments when they needed or cancelled when they don’t need them there would be more available to book.

According to the survey, how do most patients contact the surgery?

The majority of patients who responded book appointments by phone. If you are held in the queue we are answering your calls. We again have no control over this aspect. We have approx. 7300 patients, many with complex health care needs but the telephone system we now have makes contacting us easier according to patient feedback.

We offer a lot of appointments each day but the G.P. of your choice may also be the choice of others and there are only so many to go round.We have a practice population of approx 7300 and all G.P.’s can view the same information. We have opened up more appointments on Emis Access for those who prefer to book on-line which include early morning from 7.05a.m. If you have internet access please register to use on line services to book appointments 24 hours a day subject to appointment availability and prescriptions. On-line access is available to all patients regardless of age. Please ask at reception for details.

Some patients were unhappy to be waiting in reception past their appointment time slot to see a Doctor or Nurse.

Approx. 45% of patients who responded to our survey said they waited up to 10 minutes after their appointment time to see a G.P. or Nurse. 42% waited longer than 10 minutes and 13% did not respond.

The clinicians do try to keep patients to their appointment slots if possible but some cases are more complex and need further discussion to ensure patients understand their care and treatment plan. Please keep your consultation as brief as possible to allow clinicians to keep to time but bear in mind that you or a relative may at some time need more than a standard appointment to discuss problems you may have. Reception staff have been asked to monitor surgeries and if necessary inform patients if clinicians are running late so that patients can re-book if they are unable to wait to be seen.

Reception staff don’t always acknowledge patients at the reception window and deal with telephone callers first.

One Receptionist should be focusing on attending to patients at the reception windows at Gateacre Brow and Hunts Cross Avenue to ensure patients are acknowledged when standing at reception window. We have de-cluttered windows where possible by removing posters so that everyone is more visible but obviously we do have to display information.

We should acknowledge all patients attending reception even if we can’t deal with them straight away. Receptionists may be dealing with other patients queries but we will deal with you as soon as we can. Staff attended a Customer Care training event in October reminding them of the importance of acknowledging patients even when they are carrying out other required tasks. De-cluttering windows by removing posters makes everyone more visible. We have opened more appointments via Patient Access our on-line service so this should mean fewer patients are contacting the surgery by phone.

Is our practice open at times convenient to you? Patients requested before 8a.m., lunchtime, evening, week-ends.

9% of patients responded that they are not happy with our current opening hours. We are open from 7.00a.m. to 6.30p.m. Monday and Friday and 8.00a.m. to 6.30p.m. Tuesday to Thursday. We don’t close at lunch-time. We close for Education Sessions usually once a month which we advertise in surgery. We close at 6.30p.m. Monday to Friday when the Out Of Hours service UC24 cover the practice calls from 6.30p.m. each evening and at week-ends and Bank Holidays. You are connected to them directly when you contact the surgery if we are closed.

We currently have appointments from 7.05a.m. on a Monday and Friday. We have early afternoon appointments at the branch surgery on a Wednesday from 2.00p.m. to 4.00p.m. but these sessions have to fit in with our visits to patients too ill to attend surgery and we try to do these visits after morning surgery as most can’t wait until later in the day.

The practice is always open over lunch-time as we are open all day. We are looking at doing some earlier afternoon sessions currently but we have sessions starting at 2.00p.m. at the branch surgery a couple of days a week already.

Are you able to see your Doctor of choice?

51% of the patients who responded to the survey said that there was a particular Doctor they preferred to see or speak to. A total of 47% of those responding said they always, almost always or most of the time saw their G.P. of choice.

We offer a lot of appointments each day but the G.P. of your choice may also be the choice of others and there are only so many appointments to go round. If we have an appointment available it will be offered to you. We have a practice population of approx 7300 and all G.P.’s can view the same information. Patients are getting to know the Partners who have joined the practice this year and we have had a lot of positive comments regarding the changes made over the last year.

Patients said they would like more telephone consultations/ appointments to save them time by not having to come to surgery if they felt their problem didn’t need a face to face consultation or would mean they would not have to take time off work which can cause problems for some people with their employers.

24% of patients said they wouldn’t like more telephone appointments/consultations. The majority said they would as it would help with work or home commitments and they would appreciate not having to come in to surgery to discuss their problem/s if they could be dealt with via a telephone consultation. Telephone consultations still take time and this would obviously mean less face to face appointment available but we will think about what we can offer.

We are going to trial various ways of trying to provide the best service we can. On 18^th December our Doctors are going to speak to all patients requesting appointments so that everyone can be accommodated in the best way. Face to face appointments will be offered if needed as a result of the phone call and will be allocated to the Doctor who contacts the patient if they are available later in the day. Otherwise they will be given an appointment with another Doctor. We will not be booking appointments in advance for that day to give as much availability as possible to cover patient needs. We will then evaluate how the day went to allow us to plan for the future.

We would like to be able to speak with a particular Doctor and this isn’t always possible.

We do have telephone appointments available but depending on workload it may not always be your Doctor of choice on a particular day.

We offer what we have available to all patients. Our trial on 18^th December when most GP’s will be available will have staff booking the telephone call with the Doctor of choice if they are available and that Doctor will call the patient back if possible. If the Doctor of choice is available later in the day the patient will also be booked in to see the same Doctor. This should make more efficient appointments as the Doctor will have discussed the problem with the patient earlier in the day which will provide more continuity of care.

Getting through to the practice on the phone is often difficult.

46% of the patients who completed the survey said they didn’t find it easy to get through to the practice on the phone.

We introduced a new telephone system in November 2012 and have had a lot of positive comments about it. The majority of our patients contact the practice by phone. Please don’t ring at 8.00a.m. if your call can wait until later in the day as patients are trying to get through to book appointments at this time. Our phone lines are open from 8.00a.m. to 6.30p.m. Monday to Friday and we have staff available to take your call whilst we are open. Please note we don’t close at lunch-time.

How helpful do you find the Receptionists at the practice?

6% of the patients surveyed said they found our Reception staff not very or not at all helpful.

This response may have been the result of staff not being able to provide what was requested by the patient if it wasn’t available or it could have been a problem with the way the request was handled by the Receptionist from the patient viewpoint. If we can’t offer what you would like we should explain why we can’t and advise you of what is available. If you have a problem then please let us know and we will do our best to resolve it or let you know why we can’t. Our staff are trying to help but can only offer what we have available and that may or may not be what you want on the day you contact

Prescriptions should be ready after 48 hours (2 working days) and sometimes they aren’t.

Some patients commented that prescriptions weren’t ready for them to collect after our specified 48 hour turn around.

Sometimes due to workload things are missed. We apologise if this happens to you and we will do our best to resolve this for you when you come in to collect it. If we can’t rectify the problem at the time we will do so as soon as possible on the day. Please also remember to attend for medication or chronic disease review to enable us to issue your medication when it is due.

Monday

07.05 - 18:30

Tuesday

08:00 - 18:30

Wednesday

08:00 - 18:30

Thursday

08:00 - 18:30

Friday

07.05 - 18:30

Weekend

closed

Morning

Afternoon

Monday

08:35 - 11:25

15:00 - 18:00

Tuesday

08:35 - 11:25

15:00 - 18:00

Wednesday

08:35 - 11:25

15:00 - 18:00

Thursday

08:35 - 11:25

15:00 - 18:00

Friday

08:35 - 11:25

15:00 - 18:00

Weekend

closed

closed

Morning

Afternoon

Monday

08:30 - 11:45

13:30 - 16:00

Tuesday

08:30 - 11:45

13:30 - 16:30

Wednesday

08:45 - 11:30

14:00 - 16:00

Thursday

08:45 - 11:30

13.30 – 4.00 (Health Trainer and GP availability)

Friday

08:45 - 11:30

14:00 – 16:00

Weekend

closed

closed

Address

Gateacre Brow Surgery
1 Gateacre Brow
Liverpool

L25 3PA

 Telephone Numbers

0151 295 9595

Address

Hunts Cross Avenue Surgery
256 Hunts Cross Avenue
Liverpool

L25 8QT

 Telephone Numbers

0151 295 9595