Burwell Surgery Newsletter
MARCH & APRIL 2006 Welcome to the latest edition of the Burwell Surgery newsletter. The idea of the newsletter is to keep you updated with current events here at the surgery and there is also an opportunity for you to ask us any questions that you would like answered.
Patient Survey
As many of you will know, we have recently undertaken a large patient survey (which we now do annually). The vast majority of the feedback that we got from this was again very positive and we are very grateful for this.
The top three comments that we had were:
- Comments about the loss of Saturday morning surgeries and slightly shorter opening hours.
- People wait sometimes for longer than they would like in the waiting room.
- It can take some time to get a routine appointment and also some time to get through on the telephone.
To deal with these in turn, as you may be aware, we work to a nationally determined General Practice contract with the NHS. This was revised in October 2004 and has resulted in our shorter opening hours. We have tried to compensate for this by starting slightly earlier (at 8.40 am rather than 9.00 am), however we do finish slightly earlier - our last appointment is at 5.30 pm (rather than 6.00 pm for a routine appointment or 6.30 pm for an emergency as it was in the past). Although we do not have any immediate plans to change these, there does seem to be a growing political impetus to consider more flexible opening hours and this may well be something that we will reflect on in the future.
We do realise that some people wait a long time in the waiting room for appointments. A routine appointment length is 10 minutes but we have always taken the view that if somebody seems to require longer than this, then we prefer to give people the necessary time rather than require them to make a further appointment. We would, however, encourage you to request a longer appointment if you feel that a longer one is likely to be required (for example if you require certain examinations). We will always try and accommodate this.
We are also aware that sometimes it can take longer to obtain a routine appointment than one would like, especially with the GP of your choice. We do have busier times of the year and this is sometimes reflected by background disease such as flu and also by our staffing levels. Some partners also have outside interests such as teaching or performing certain surgical procedures which can reduce the number of available appointments. We plan to look at this issue closely over the coming months to see if there is anything that we can do to minimise the length of wait for routine appointments. If you need to be seen on the same day, then the receptionist will always allocate you an appointment for that day although we prefer these to be arranged during a morning to be seen at the end of the morning surgery where possible.
Telephone access should have improved considerably since our new telephone system was installed. We have six dedicated patient lines and our receptionists aim to answer calls within two to five rings. Clearly, there are exceptionally busy times, particularly on Monday mornings when this may not be possible. Certainly, if it is possible to ring later in the day, particularly on a Monday, then we would suggest it is a good idea. Please also note the prescription line is open from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm only. We have considered the question of whether it would be appropriate to offer a dedicated phone line for an emergency but our current view is that there would be little benefit from this over the current service and would be extremely awkward for us to staff. We will, however, keep this situation under review.
If you have any comments to make about the above, then please feel free to relay them to our Practice Manager, Aileen Allen, and we will be very happy to receive and act on them.
Internet Booking and Repeat Prescriptions
Did you know that you can now both make appointments and order repeat prescriptions on the internet? The procedure is very straightforward. Please ask for details from reception.
Clinical Questions
Are there any illnesses that you would like further information on in the form of this newsletter? Is so, please write down your question and give it to reception.
Comments
If you have any comments on any of the above or any views about any other aspects of the Surgery please speak to reception or ideally write it down for the attention of...