Not quite the New Year

Save the Children
Thank you for supporting our efforts to raise money for Save the Children. With your help we have raised £46.20 and a cheque has been sent off.

Access to your medical records
The new year will see the start of electronic access to medical records. Those of you wishing to have online access to your medical records will need to register at reception in person and with a photo ID to have this activated. You will then be issued with a pin number and password. It is your responsibility to look after and protect your own login details. We will not be providing access to patients under the age of 16 until we have safeguards in place to ensure their confidentiality.

At present registration will only allow access to medication, allergies and immunisations but in time greater access will be possible. Full access to care records is planned for 2018.  Patients will be able to record their own comments alongside the medical notes.

Passport Photos 
Did you know that GPs can no longer sign passport forms for our patients? The law changed this year and GPs are no longer on the approved list of counter signatories. A GP may not sign in our professional capacity. Your optician, pharmacist, social worker, solicitor, teacher may sign for you and a full list is available from countersigning-passport-applications

2015

May your world be filled with warmth, 

joy and good cheer…
Wishing you a Happy New Year!
from all at Wickham Park Surgery

The Doctors, Nurses and Staff

at Wickham Park Surgery

wish all our patients a peaceful

and joyful Christmas

and a happy and healthy New Year. 

December Post

Wear your Woolies

Members of the practice team will be wearing their Christmas jumpers to work on 10th and 12th December in support of Save the Children. Please help us to raise some money for this valuable cause

1. Pay in online.
2. Text JUMPER to 70050 to donate £2*.
* You'll be billed £2 plus standard rate text message. They receive 100% of your donation. By sending this text you agree that they may contact you to tell you about their work and how you can help. They will always give you the chance to opt out of further communications. If you would rather not receive such information, please email them at supporter.care@savethechildren.org.uk or phone or include NO INFO in your text message.

Friends and Family Test.
From 1 December 2014 it is a contractual requirement that all GP practices undertake the NHS Friends and Family test. NHS England say this test is a feedback tool supporting "the principle that people who use NHS services should have the opportunity to provide feedback on their experience that can be used to improve services."

The Friends and Family Test is a continuous feedback tool; patients responses must be anonymous; feedback can be given after each experience of the service if patients wish; the results should be transparently available to the public and to patients. Information on the responses collected is to be submitted to NHS England on a monthly basis and these results will be published.
Please look out for paper feedback forms within the surgery or use the link on the practice website or the practice blog poll (to the right of this column).

Booking in when you arrive
The surgery has a new touch screen for booking in for your appointment when you arrive at the surgery. It is placed just around the corner on the right of the reception window. It will also allow you to update your personal information if you wish and will offer patient specific reminders about services you may be due for such as flu jabs, prescription reviews etc.

News & Views

Thank you
I was very sorry not to be able to take part in our annual relocation to West Wickham and Shirley Baptist Church for the flu clinic this year. I really missed the opportunity to meet with you all outside of the surgery. Unfortunately commitments to the medical students and the absence of other doctors on leave meant I had to stay put behind my desk.

I would like to say a massive thank you to all of you who bought Christmas cards or contributed money towards my chosen charity " Freedom from Torture”. You raised the huge sum of £230 over the two days which has been paid on to the charity this weekend. It is an organisation I feel very strongly about and the money you have contributed will help it to continue its valuable work rebuilding the lives of those physically and psychologically damaged by torture. Freedom from Torture remains the only organisation in the UK dedicated solely to the treatment and rehabilitation of survivors of torture.

Friends and Family Test.From 1 December 2014 it is a contractual requirement that all GP practices undertake the NHS Friends and Family test. NHS England say this test is a feedback tool supporting "the principle that people who use NHS services should have the opportunity to provide feedback on their experience that can be used to improve services."

The Friends and Family question asks if people would recommend the service they have used and offers a range of responses. It will be combined with a secondary question. The idea is that practices will use the generated feedback to "celebrate successes and support staff to make improvements to services."

The Friends and Family Test is a continuous feedback tool; patients responses must be anonymous; feedback can be given after each experience of the service if patients wish; the results should be transparently available to the public and to patients. Information on the responses collected is to be submitted to NHS England on a monthly basis and these results will be published.

Please look out for paper feedback forms within the surgery or use the link on the practice website. The question will be phrased as follows:

"We would like you to think about your recent experiences of our service. How likely are you to recommend our GP practice to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?"
The responses are extremely likely; likely; neither likely nor unlikely; extremely unlikely or don't know.

Dementia Screening Payment.This practice will not be signing up to the government’s proposed scheme to pay £55 per patient for each additional dementia diagnosis we make over the next six months. Like many GPs we believe this scheme is best boycotted as it lacks a sound ethical basis. We will continue to assess, investigate and refer patients based on their individual clinical needs.

Your GP Cares

Summer has arrived, the sun is shining, the World Cup has some amazing football and the Tour de France is about to have its Grand Depart in Yorkshire. This year is certainly racing past.

What has changed at the surgery? We have increasing numbers of patients and increasing waiting times.  You might think the two go hand in hand but that would not be the whole picture.

NHS England estimates that some 340 million consultations are now undertaken every year, an increase of 40 million since 2008. 

The needs of patients visiting their GP practice have also changed. In England 15 million people live with a chronic condition and more care for patients with chronic diseases, such as diabetes and asthma, previously carried out in hospital settings is now increasingly being provided at GP surgeries.

We are currently advertising for another doctor to work with us but like many GPs we are struggling to recruit. It is becoming harder to find locum cover so that patients can still be seen if a colleague is sick or absent. Both Dr Mustapha and I have had to cover sessions when we should have been on holiday or on study days because cover could not be found.

Premises are old (as you all know) and need investment to create more room for patients to be seen or simply to make them fit for purpose.

Please take a look at the British Medical Association’s campaign video “Your GP cares” which gives a little more detail on the issues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy4CVGlSDP8

The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser - in case you thought optimism was dead. Robert Brault

Premises:

As you will recall our plans to relocate to more patient friendly premises have been dragging on for some time (more than 12 years!) but with the change in organisational structure to the NHS new people and departments are responsible for making these decisions. There are new priorities and targets for them. This is an extract of an e-mail received from NHS England updating us on their view of our current application for a new surgery premises.

“The vision for future Primary Care provision is that it must be available from:

·         modern fit for purpose buildings under current regulations and guidelines

·         wherever possible practices should co-locate to reduce operating costs and overheads, benefiting from economies of scale

·         multiple providers should operate from single locations to provide a variety of patient services

·         building should support the out of hospital agenda, offering an increased range of services within the Primary Care setting such as diagnostics etc

Additionally, there is very limited funding available for capital projects, and only those classified as high priority, are likely to reach the approval stage of the stringent process. Non-recurring costs will now be considered in line with the new NHS England premises discretionary funding policy rather than the previous Cluster policy.

The business case you are presenting is an anomaly to what I have previously described. If it is to be recommended for approval, it must be the most cost effective option, provide significant added value, and stack up in all areas. This is not currently the case.”

We sought a meeting with representatives of the new primary care commissioners and received the following response:

“I am fully aware of the history which dates back to around 2002 and ****** and I reviewed the Business Case (BC) together. In fact, I still have the historic audit trail! With the greatest of respect to all parties, because of the financial situation and strategic drivers that now impact upon premises development BC decisions across London, and the fact that each BC must compete against a set of London priorities (e.g. New GP premises within the former Olympic Park to serve the significant new population), as ****** says, only BCs that can tick as many boxes as possible will be accepted. As much as it pains me to say it, the historic facts will not make a difference in themselves, BUT, coupled with a BC that responds to as many strategic deliverables as possible, will be something we (senior commissioners) are able to support. I therefore suggest that before any meeting is convened, you consider our comments and seek to amend the BC.”

This week we are meeting again with the Development Executive of GPI who has been supporting our application and a representative of the Bromley CCG. We hope we can revise the business case to "tick as many boxes as possible".

You wait all this time for a blog and then two come along at once!

So much time has elapsed since I last wrote that I hardly know where to begin to bring you up to date with everything.
It is not through lack of intention but rather through lack of time that this has been such an intermittent blog.

Staff:

Many of you will know that Dr Mandy Selby moved on to practice at the Addington Road Surgery towards the end of last year. Mandy had been with Wickham Park Surgery for the

last 10 years and had brought all her skills and experience to her work with this greatly benefiting both patients, doctors and staff. She is one of the clinical leads for the new Bromley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and this role unfortunately clashed with the days that she worked for us. We wish her well both in this role and in her new practice.

We have been joined by a number of part-time salaried doctors who enhance the services that we are able to provide for you by bringing their wide ranging skills and experience to the surgery. Dr ChiChi Ekhator works a full day on Fridays. She is keen on working in a small practice where she can provide continuity and holistic care. Dr Deen Habeeb some of you will know from his previous locums in the practice. He is sharing his time between working in Wales and working at Wickham Park and will mainly be with us on Mondays and Wednesdays. Dr Matthew Young shares his time between South London & Maudsley NHS trust where he works in substance misuse and working at Wickham Park on Tuesday and Thursday.

We hope that the wider range of available appointments sessions will help to ease the pressure when you are trying to book to see us.

Pathology:

There have been a number of quality issues with the transfer of pathology services from the Princess Royal University Hospital to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Woolwich. There have been strong representations made on your behalf and with the support of Kings College Hospital who are now responsible for the Princess Royal, the service is improving and will continue to be monitored closely.

Pathology Results:

We are aware that accessing your results has been difficult for many of you. To try and remedy this we have changed the system for the giving of results. 

• Where you have given us your mobile telephone number you will receive a text asking you to contact the surgery if there are any issues on your results that need discussion. 
• If we do not have a mobile number for you and the issue is significant we will ask reception to contact you directly.
• From 1 February when you contact the surgery for a result you will be asked to leave the number you wish to be contacted on and one of the doctors will phone you back between 1pm and 2pm (on your preferred number) to discuss your results.

We hope that this makes getting your results less of a frustrating experience for you with less need to call back several times for the results.

I will post separately about the ongoing premises issues.

In the meantime I hope that this has filled in some gaps and answered some questions.

A belated happy New Year to all of our patients.