The full Town Council meeting on Monday (September 8) heard a plea from a partner at the Marlborough Medical Practice (MMP), Dr Jenny Campbell, for councillors to support the profession’s campaign for increased funding for GPs’ services.
During her presentation to councillors she alluded to the practice’s Patient Participation Group and to the large number of missed appointments, which cost money.
The campaign being run by the British Medical Association across the United Kingdom – including Scotland – is called “Your GP Cares” and calls for much more ‘long-term, sustainable investment in general practice.’
Dr Campbell, who has been with the MMP for eight years, set the campaign in the context of complaints about the difficulties people have in getting an appointment with their doctor. She said that in one week in July 43 per cent of calls to the surgery were from people with urgent needs who were seen on the same day.
Dr Campbell told councillors that the MMP was now fully staffed. Dr Abigail Smail joined on September 1 – replacing Dr Ahilan. She works on Mondays and Thursdays and will also run a weekly Minor Operations Clinic on Tuesday mornings.
The MMP has also employed an extra triage nurse to make the handling of calls more efficient still and to make sure patients calling in get appropriate appointments or referrals to, for instance, A&E. Dr Campbell said that although they try their best to attend to everyone, the MMP is not a Minor Injuries Unit.
The campaign video (which can be viewed here) showed that in 2013 26,300,000 people had waited longer than a week for an appointment and made it clear that 10 minute appointments were inadequate – especially for an ageing population with complex conditions.
But the surprise of the evening was that MMP now has a Patient Participation Group. The lack of such a group brought a slap on the wrist from the Care Quality Commission in November last year (MMP passed all the main standards.) Following the CQC report, MMP said they would start a group, but only an online group rather than a face-to-face round-the-table group.
What we have learned so far is that Marlborough town councillor Richard Allen is a member of the group. Also that its first outcome, as Dr Campbell told the meeting, was to call for better patient education, and for improvements to access and to communications with patients.
Dr Campbell introduced another new member of staff, Mrs Amy Lacey who is MMP’s Patient Services Manager. She said that last month there were 170 missed appointments at the MMP – that is a daily average of 8.5 missed appointments and over a week is equivalent to two-and-a-half lost days of doctors’ time.
During questions from councillors, Dr Campbell was asked whether doctors’ visits to patients in Marlborough’s care homes was not part of the reason for difficulties in getting appointments. Dr Campbell did not think it was.
In fact since April last year, GPs have had extra funds from Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group for additional care home work. In the last financial year this was £91 per care home patient.
Dr Campbell ended her presentation by pointing out that GPs handle 90 per cent of the NHS’ daily contact with patients, but get 10 per cent of the NHS budget: “We must beg government for more funding.”
