1. Communications Survey Report

2. Profile of the PRG  The PRG is made up of 80 regular attending patients. Patients who have retired constitute 35% of the PRG with the rest being either employed, students or unemployed with an average age of 47.5 years old. The age range of members is from 16-86 years. The ethnicity of the patients is 62% White British or other, 22% Black African or Caribbean, 10 % Asian & 6% unknown.  The wider PRG is made up of 80 patients that have actively taken an interest in attending patient participation meetings at the practice.  The PPG met 3 times between 01 April 2012 and 31 March 2013. 1 meeting was virtual and 2 were physical.  We took several attempts to encourage more under represented groups to attend the Patient Reference Group meetings such as: Meeting in the evenings so younger patients who work during the day or unsociable hours could attend meetings. We attempted to target the large Spanish speaking population by asking a Spanish speaking doctor to actively encourage her patients to come along to the group meetings. We’ve translated surveys and invitations into Spanish. We’ve texted patients to try and get through to them. Attempting to engage Black and Ethnic Minorities patients during Walk in Clinics and booked surgeries via reception and inviting them along to attend PPG. The doctors & nurses have unlimited access to patients in consultation so I created invitation cards that they could give to the patient at the end of the consultation as a way of inviting a patient along to meetings. We are satisfied that we have done as much as we could to make sure the group is representative of our practice population.

3. How we agreed to and designed the Patient Participation Survey 2013  The group met on 4 th February 2013. Prior to that we met in July 2012. We also met in March 2013.  Patients discussed their thoughts on things that needed improvement within the practice. We came up with an action plan following the discussions.  Continuity of care, referral letters in secondary care, clinical commissioning; how aware patients are of it and recommendations were recurring themes in the discussion so the group decided that these were the things that would be surveyed.

4. How we carried out the Practice Survey  We firstly designed the survey by creating a list of questions designed to engage patients in expressing their opinions according to the ideas and areas the PPG had put forward.  We then transported over to Survey Monkey and was with the aid of this tool.  The original survey was given out in reception. It was handed to patients after consultations.  We found that our Spanish patients could not fill out the survey so we translated it into Spanish and gave copies of it out in reception.  We emailed the survey link out to patients with a covering email explaining the survey and the purpose of it.  The survey link was posted on the practice website.  The survey was posted to patients who requested it.

5. The Statistics  In total we gave out 80 copies of the paper survey and had responses from 64 patients. We sent out the survey monkey link of the survey to 561 patients and has responses from 75 patients. In total we had 139 responses to our survey. 11 of our online survey fillers did not complete their questionnaires but their survey were still included as all data is valuable.

6. Steps taken to get the PRG to discuss the survey and action plan  The PRG would have relished the opportunity to have a face to face meeting to discuss the results of the survey.  After calling round we found that many members were busy preparing for their Easter holidays this year. We found that the best time to have a face to face meeting would be after Easter.  We then decided to have a virtual meeting via means of telephone conferencing on Wednesday 27 th March which would allow many patients to participate as everyone could put their views in regarding the outcomes of the survey and the plan of action.

7. How the findings will be implemented  The findings of this survey will mostly be implemented over a period of time.  Some of the findings were actually already being tackled by the surgery as a result of previous PPG meetings at the time of the survey results being released.  We found that upon speaking to patients about the findings of the survey, a general trend of thought evolved.  We will consult the PRG as we go along informing the group of the progress intermittently.

8. Action Plan following discussion of the Patient Participation Survey 2013  The PPG met on 27th March 2013 via a series of virtual Communications from 12pm – 4.30pm. We met via telephone with everyone that was available to talk. Please note that a comprehensive version of the action plan & discussions can be found on the practice website.  The main action points that the PPG members discussed and agreed on were that we needed to: 1. Try and find a way of increasing continuity of care at the practice. 2. Develop a system by which patients can notify the surgery if they would like to receive a referral letter and the method they prefer. 3. Increase the profile of the Lambeth Clinical Commissioning Group so patient’s are aware of the changes and how it affects them. 4. Try and increase our patient approval rating among patients that wouldn’t recommend the surgery to their family and friends.

9. Details of the action plan  The majority of patients surveyed (30%) use the surgery 2-3 times a year. We needed to look at the continuity of care for all patients as we found that those attended in the higher frequencies of 5 more than 5 times a year was just under 60% of our patients. 1. The PRG decided that we should: Ask the surgery to launch a campaign that educates patients about the importance of seeing the same GP when they attend the surgery. The campaign could consist of adding information to the practice website. Doctors could be better at asking patients to come back and see them. Receptionists helping patients to remember who they last had an appointment with by looking back in the clinical records when booking appointments or registering patients in the walk in clinic.

10. Details of the action plan 2. We next discussed giving patients access to their referral letters to secondary care.  The PRG decided that we should try and pass this information on to patients if they want it. The survey showed that 88% of patients wanted to see the referral letters. More than half of all patients wanted to receive their letters, wanted to receive them via the post. The practice to send letters to patients asking them to opt in to a referral letter system. Patients could indicate if they would like to receive copies of their letters and the method by which they would like to receive them. Patient’s being aware of this information will help patient’s to be more responsible for their own health and own it. When patients register there could be an option on their form where they can indicate if they would like to receive referral letters so that the practice databases can be kept up to date.

11. Details of the action plan 3. Increase the profile of the Lambeth Clinical Commissioning Group among our patients so patient’s are aware of the changes and how it affects them. In remedy of above points the PRG decided that the practice should:  Start advertising the CCG via the practice website.  Invite patient’s along to Lambeth LINk/Lambeth Health Watch meetings so that they can be a part of changes more directly.  Encourage patients to join the PPG Network.  Also advertise CCG in the form of eye catching posters in the reception waiting areas  Write about the CCGs in the practice newsletter.

12. Details of the action plan 4. Try and increase our patient approval rating among patients that wouldn’t recommend the surgery to their family and friends. To remedy the dissatisfaction of above points the PRG decided that the practice should: Definitely continue doing the things that make patients happy as expressed in the survey. Try and reduce waiting times in the walk in clinic. Reception and the doctors to manage the walk in clinic more efficiently.

13. Summary of Evidence

18. Changes the Surgery will make & changes that have already been made As a result of the action plan the surgery proposes to make several changes. 1. We will launch a campaign that educates patients about the importance of seeing the same GP when they attend the surgery in order to boost continuity of care. 2. We will contact patients asking them if they would like to opt in to a referral letter scheme. 3. Advertise the CCG via the practice website and try and make patients more aware of the work of the CCG with increase literature. 4. Try and increase our patient approval rating among patients that wouldn’t recommend the surgery to their family and friends by asking reception and the doctors to manage the walk in clinic more efficiently. This is something that we are already working on.

19. Practice Opening Hours  We are open from 8.00am – 6.30pm every day. We do not close at any point during the day. There is always a doctor on site.  We only close 8 Thursdays in a year for Protected Learning Time (PLT) for staff training and education.  There are three methods of obtaining health care while the practice is open during the hours mentioned above.  We have: The Walk In Clinic – Open to all registered patients. It runs on a first come first served basis from 8.30am – 10.30am. We also offer booked appointments in the afternoon which run between 1.30pm – 5.30pm from a variety of doctors & nurses. We occasionally offer booked morning appointments. We also offer Early morning appointments 3 days a week. We also have booked telephone appointment consultations on a daily basis.

20. Extended Hours  Lambeth Walk currently has an extended hours access. We offer early morning appointments Monday- Wednesday mornings from 7am -8am during the week.  We try to encourage patients that have a 9am-5pm working pattern to book the early morning appointments instead of not seeing a doctor at all.