Results of 2013 Patient Survey
The aim of the survey was to find out what areas patients feel could be improved and to enable us to focus our services to best meet the needs of the patients
The survey was sent to all members of the Patient Participation Group (PPG) and available to all patients who visited the surgery over a period of one month
I have summarised the results, together with agreed improvements, below
The survey focussed on 4 key areas, timing of appointments, GP choice, areas for improvement and impact the new computer system has had on patient experience
- 1. We asked what time of day patients preferred to have an appointment
Before 10 30%
10am – 12 25%
2pm – 4pm 13%
After 4pm 11%
No preference 29%
Our current appointment pattern has approximately 70% of appointments before 12noon and 30% from 2pm –The current patterns would seem to suit patient preferences so no changes will be made
- 2. We asked what was most important when booking an appointment to see a GP
Getting an appointment for the same day 43%
Getting an appointment with the GP of choice (but not same day) 34%
Getting an appointment for a specific day/time to suit 20%
Currently 50% of our appointments are pre-bookable, 30% are held back as same day appointments and 20% are “duty” appointments for urgent must be seen on the day cases, we discussed whether some appointments could be made available for “book in a couple of days” but felt that this was probably unworkable – we will hold more appointments back for times when we are short of GPs and will monitor this over the coming months
- 3. We asked patients to identify what they felt were their 3 top priorities for improvement, results are listed in order of priority:
Being able to get through on the phone quickly 55%
Getting an appointment at a time to suit the patient 54%
Improved service at reception 41%
Not being asked to call back 18%
Improved service in dispensary 11%
Being able to speak to reception/dispensary in confidence 9%
Being able to book an appointment on line 7%
Being able to order a repeat prescription on line 5%
Being able to use Email/Fax 5%
Look and feel of waiting area 4%
In addition we had several comments in the “other” field:
More courtesy from receptionists
Receptionists not to keep patients waiting when they are obviously standing there
Receptionists are OK face to face but not good on the phone
Immediate response from Receptionists, not leave people waiting
Phones not switched through by 8am
GPs working hours should reflect patients needs
Availability of GP of choice at short notice (3-4 days)
Being able to press 5 for reception instead of listening to other services
Would be helpful to be able to book same day appointments on line
Being able to access record on line
Better lighting of the path to the car park
Automatic doors from waiting room to Doctors corridor
Waiting times are too long
Seen roughly on time
The key message seems to be getting through on the phone, getting an appointment to suit and dissatisfaction with the service provided by Reception
Getting through to the surgery
Getting through to the surgery is always most difficult between 8am and 9am, when patients are ringing to get a same day appointment – we have 4 telephone lines, once 4 people have called in any other person trying to get through gets an engaged tone and needs to re-dial
It is possible to get systems that allow any number of calls to get through which are then held in a queuing system with the patient being told that they are number x in the queue – this does not increase the speed in which the person gets to speak to a member of staff but does avoid the need to re-dial
Getting through at peak times is always an issue for GP surgeries regardless of which method is used.
To improve this issue we considered the following:
- Make more appointments available to book on the internet
- Look at phone technology to see if this can help
- Limit calls to the surgery between 8am and 9am for “urgent appointments only”
- Consider ways of revising our staffing so that we have more staff available to answer the phones between 8am and 9am
Agreed improvements:
We will make more appointments available for internet booking
We are looking at telephone technology to see if this can improve the situation
It was felt that limiting calls between 8am and 9am would only add to the frustration if someone did get through and then be told that they couldn’t make an appointment and would need to call back
I will look at freeing up more staff to answer incoming calls during the busiest slots but will need the technology solution first as the majority of phones in the practice are extensions and cannot pick up incoming calls directly
Getting an appointment to suit
This is another issue that affects all surgeries, if we reduce the number of appointments we hold back then people happy to wait a day or two will have a better chance of getting an appointment to suit but this is at the cost of patients with an urgent issue who feel they must be seen on the day
We have tried altering the ratio of pre-bookable/book on the day appointments but there doesn’t appear to be a magic solution – we will continue to monitor this
Service provided by Reception
The receptionists have a difficult job, particularly if a patient wants something that we cannot do (e.g. “but I must see Dr Lort on Wednesday”) however I accept that patients can stand at the window in the waiting room and feel that they are being ignored, sometimes the receptionist is on the phone to another patient but we could improve our service by acknowledging the patient waiting and let them know that we have seen them and will be with them in a minute
I will organise specific customer service training to include the points raised here.
We agreed that it would be helpful if staff wore name badges so that patients are aware of who they are speaking to
The comment about the phones not being switched through is probably a perception problem, the receptionists do not take the phone off answer phone, it is done automatically at 8am via BT so if someone feels that it was late it is probable that their clock is fast – sometimes people try to “jump the queue” by trying a little earlier on the off chance that the receptionist has taken the phones off answer phone a little early – they will then get the out of hours message and this can lead to frustration
4. We asked if the new computer system had made a difference to patients experience
Yes – worse 16%
Yes – better 18%
No difference 63%
The new system did cause some teething problems when we first went live, we didn’t encounter any major issues and I feel it is now running smoothly. The main changes for patients are in dispensing with scripts now being sent electronically to the dispensary and on many occasions the dispensers can have the items ready for the patient by the time they get to the dispensary.
Our old automatic booking in machine broke and we have replaced it. This caused many early problems, mainly due to people entering their date of birth incorrectly but on some occasions it seemed to have booked people in and the patient sat waiting but they were not booked in. We contacted the suppliers who ran diagnostic checks and updated the software and although running slowly sometimes we don’t seem to have any other issues with it at the moment - I will monitor this
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Results of 2012 Patient Survey
The patient survey was carried out in the first two weeks of January 2012, all patients visiting the surgery for any reason were invited to complete a survey, and additionally notices were placed in the waiting room
A total of 36 completed surveys were returned
Appointments
Most people book appointments either in person or by phone, 12% use the internet but 24% would like to use the internet
Getting through on the phone
94% who had tried to get through on the phone found it very easy or fairly easy, 6% found it not very easy
73% who tried to speak to a doctor or nurse on the phone found it very easy or fairly easy, 27% found it not very easy
Arriving for an appointment
All patients reported that the building was very of fairly easy to get into
100% of patients reported that the building was very clean or fairly clean
Overhearing conversations with the receptionist – 61% said that they could be overheard but didn’t mind, 17% said they could be overheard and weren’t happy about it
67% of patients find the receptionists very helpful, 28% find them fairly helpful and 6% find them not very helpful
72% of patients reported being seen within 15 minutes, 8% over 15 minutes and 20% couldn’t remember or didn’t have timed appointments
5% feel that they have to wait far too long
Seeing a nurse
All patients who had tried to get an appointment with a nurse found it very easy or fairly easy, nobody reported that the standard of care was poor or very poor, 5% found it acceptable, 95% found it good or very good
Seeing a doctor
86% of patients who tried to make an appointment to see a doctor within 2 weekdays were able to do so, 14% could not, of these 75% reported that there were no appointments and 25% said they were offered an appointment but it was for a doctor that they didn’t want to see
76% of patients who tried to book an appointment more than 2 weekdays in advance were able to do so, 24% reported that they were unable to book ahead
3% felt that the doctor didn’t give them enough time, 3% felt the doctor didn’t ask about their symptoms and 3% didn’t feel the doctor took their problem seriously, 97% of patients were happy with these
Seeing the preferred doctor
74% of patients prefer to see a specific doctor, 3% of these said that they see their preferred doctor some of the time, the rest see their preferred doctor always or a lot of the time
Dispensary
Friendly, helpful customer service – 100% found this very good or good
Accuracy – 100% found this very good or good
Acknowledging people at the window – 100 % found this very good or good
Providing guidance on how to take medication – 95% found this very good or good, 5% neither good nor poor
Ease of knowing where to go – 100% found this very good or good
Dispensing repeats within 2 working days – 93% found this very good or good, 4% found is neither good nor poor and 4% found it poor
There were additional comments about patients not happy that they were no longer able to use the surgery for their prescriptions
Satisfaction with the surgery
80% of patients are very satisfied, 17% are fairly satisfied, and 3% are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
92% would recommend the surgery, 3% might, 3% were not sure and 3% would not recommend the surgery
The Patient Council and Patient Participation Group were consulted and key areas for change were identified.
Areas identified for improvement were:
Internet Access – 12% reported that they use the internet to book appointments but 24% said they would like to, internet access is available so we discussed how we could make patients aware – a notice was considered although patients tend not to notice them, another option is to put a message on the repeat prescription slips, Nicola to arrange for both notices and a message on the prescriptions, it was also agreed that the information could be put into church magazines
Waiting times – 72% of patients reported being seen within 15 minutes and 5% felt that they had to wait far too long – the addition of a whiteboard has helped – patients are happier when they are informed of any long waits
The results in other areas were very promising and no further action to be taken at this stage
