Healthcare
Prioritising Patient Needs: Productive General Practice (PGP) Quick Start Programme.
Prioritising Patient Needs: Productive General Practice (PGP) Quick Start Programme.
Our team were invited to assist at the Sutton Benger Surgery in in the South West through the Quick Start Programme.
When a national shortage of blood phials caused patient delays at the Wiltshire surgery, the practice, with the help of Develop Consulting, designed a new approach that helped priority patients receive their blood tests on time.
Results
- Patients received their blood tests on time. There are less delays and less complaints as variation across the practice has reduced, resulting in a more consistent service. As an example: Instead of some patients having to wait up to three months, the practice was able to provide the test within a month.
- The admin team freed up 13 hours per week dealing with blood related phone calls more efficiently/ This time has been used to support the nursing team set up additional blood clinics and deliver other patient facing services.
- Five hours of GP time were freed up, by using a new Standard Operating procedure which was used to create their own patient registers for recall.
- Running low on supplies when workload is high: The practice has developed a template (now in place) to be used in the future should they be short on supplies again.
- As a result of working on this project, the practice has commented on the great team working demonstrated across different departments and how it has strengthened the organisation.
Observations
The challenge of the patient backlog had developed following the easing of COVID restrictions.
This was compounded by a national shortage of blood phials.
Objectives
Staff wanted to minimise any delays to the response time for blood tests
Catch up on the backlog
Free up time for the surgery
Actions
Develop a Standard Operating Procedure from a full national guidance issues on the shortage
SOP to be uploaded onto SystmOne with a flag to ensure all staff have read it.
Recall patients in order of priority
Additional blood clinics set up to ‘fast-track’ priority patients
Extending length of appointment times
Testimonials
“PGP Quick Start helps you sort through your issues quickly. It helped us reduce patient delays when there was a national shortage of blood phials and develop a template that we can use again if there are shortages in the future.” Charlotte Astin, GP, Sutton Benger Surgery
“You’ll be guided through the changes you want to make, and they’ll be broken down into achievable chunks. In primary care we lack time for design thinking and planning, but this programme will give you the space to do just that.” Emmy Butcher, Practice Manager, Sutton Benger Surgery
To read the full report visit this link.
