The practice surveyed 250 patients between the 17th February 2020 - 27th February 2020. These were face to face GP consultations, patients attending the practice nurses, or patients coming into the reception to collect prescriptions or making appointments. The patients were a mixture of different age, sex, ethnicity and ability. 250 patients completed the questionnaire albeit some only completed the first question – “Would you recommend your GP practice to someone who has just moved into the local area”.
| 2020 Practice survey – Would you recommend your GP practice to someone else who has just moved into the local area? | % of patient answers |
Extremely likely | 150 | 60% |
Likely | 76 | 30.40% |
Neither | 17 | 6.80% |
Unlikely | 5 | 2.0% |
Extremely unlikely | 2 | 0.80% |
Don’t know | 0 | |
Total | 250 | 100% |
Some of the positive reasons for the scores give were:-
- Reception staff helpful, approachable and friendly.
- Easy access to doctors.
- Doctors are very knowledgeable, thorough and caring.
- Patients are treated with respect.
- Doctors are professional and friendly.
- Courteous.
- Excellent service.
- Blood room a great improvement since operating the appointment system.
- Emergency appointments available every day.
- Practice nurses are professional, caring and friendly.
Some of the negative reasons for the scores given were:
- Possible online booking of appointments - We are currently looking at the possibility of this working in the practice.
- Availability to speak to a GP.
- Timescale for routine appointments.
- Phone system - constantly engaged.
- Building needs replaced.
- Patient access poor - due to limited phone in times.
- Difficult to make an appointment when you work full time - evening surgeries would be a suggestion.
- Phone in system - Doctors should do a call back to patients.
- Waiting times too long - penalise patients who do not turn up for their appointment.
We have looked at the negative reasons given but unfortunately some of them are out of our control. Our telephone system is part of the SET as we are part of a health centre. We only have 4 lines into the practice and as we are a large practice with over 12,000 patients the lines are always exceptionally busy. Until we move into a new health centre this will always be a problem. Hopefully we will be moving to our new health centre in late 2021. We do have a website for repeat prescriptions and a 24 hour dedicated repeat prescription telephone line to help with the volume of phone calls.
We have a 20 minute "telephone phone in " each day to speak to a GP. Unfortunately this cannot be extended as the GP's do have face to face appointments and home visits to deal with on a daily basis.
Penalising patients for not turning up for their appointments is out of our control.