Minutes of Parish Council 25th January 2023

Appendix to the Minutes of the Parish Council Meeting

Held on Wed 25th January 2023 at 7.30 pm.

Item 23/3     Guest Speaker – Dr Chowhan of Creffield Medical Group

A number of questions were then raised by the members of public, which are set out below, together with Dr Chowhan’s response:

Question 1: Why can we no longer call the West Bergholt doctors’ surgery direct or go face to face to the surgery to make an appointment.  Calling to make an appointment can take up to an hour.

Answer: The phone service at the surgery is a “waiting service”. Previously calls to the surgery would go unanswered because the line was engaged, which meant the caller had to keep redialling to get through. The waiting service has a greater capacity which means more calls can be answered and placed in a queue. The system is fair and deals with on average 1200 calls on a Monday morning, which it would be impossible for staff to deal with otherwise. West Bergholt is only an outpost of a larger surgery, smaller practices can simply not survive as they are anymore.

Question 2: I called the surgery and was told I was 48th in the queue, an hour later I was then 3rd in the queue, but then got cut off and had to redial. Why is this?

Answer: Wavenet are the company that manage the phone system and they deny that this happens, but we have had complaints of this nature. So, it will assist us if we can evidence this happening, and it would help if the public email us when this happens and note the exact time and date so we can pass this on to Wavenet. The PC Chair, Cllr Butcher, asked that residents contact the Parish Council on [email protected] so that we can gather the evidence for the surgery.

Question 3:  How is it that I call at 8am and I am 40th in the queue?

Answer: The phone system has the capacity to answer all incoming calls, and everyone wants to be the first to call in. 80% of calls are made between 8-10am.

Question 4: Why can’t I book an appointment for a few days ahead? And I want to see a GP not receive a call back from a paramedic.

Answer: If we start to book appointments ahead of time, it leaves us with few appointments for emergencies, and the booking model doesn’t work.  And we are advertising to employ another GP, but we are receiving no applications. A paramedic is more than able to deal with your problem. A shift is needed in the public’s perception in needing to see a “Doctor”.

Question 5: Can you educate the public not to waste GP’s time and use the other services instead?

Answer: “Self-help” has been promoted as the new buzz word, but takes time, so the surgery welcomes any advice on how we can do this. We have a patient participation group  which meets once a month for patients to have their say, all are welcome.

Question 6: The new reception desk is in the same area as the patient waiting area and offers no privacy, with the screen in front of the receptionist resulting in you having to raise your voice and everyone hearing the details of what you are saying to the receptionist.

Answer: The partition screen was installed due to Covid and for the safety of staff, it must stay, however the builder made a mistake when installing the screen and only left a small gap at the bottom of the screen to allow for receptionist and patient to talk normally. We are currently working on a solution for this.  Patients can tell the receptionist that they have a private matter to discuss and would like to speak in private.

Question 7: What qualifications do receptionist have; how do they know who to direct our ailments to?

Answer: All receptionists take part in a 2-week training plan. We now have the 2nd floor for all staff, so receptionists can confer with other staff and professionals in order to direct a call correctly.

Question 8: How can we, the patients, help you the surgery? We are grateful for all you do, thank you, how can we help the practice?

Answer: We are trying to do the best we can and are all working hard.  Please be kind. In the past year we have lost 5 receptionists and in the last month we have had to call the police 3 times due to violent behaviour.  One patient tried to hit a receptionist. Please also join the Patient Participation Group to find answers on how to help us. If you have a question then please do raise it with us, we will try to find a solution.

Question 9: Could you have an online system to upload your problem then get a call back?

Answer: We have “Dashboard” on our website so we can direct you to the correct place and answer your question, and you can also order medication online.  “Ask My GP” is an online consultation and workflow system that helps GPs manage patient caseload through operational change and digital triage. However, if we moved over to email questions, it would simply mean we have 1200 emails a day, instead of 1200 phone calls, not really a solution as we have to draw a line somewhere or else there becomes a point where it becomes unsafe.

Question 10: Why do I get allocated an appointment at a different surgery?

Answer: We try to make use of the appointments we have available, and if all appointments are booked at West Bergholt, you will be allocated one elsewhere but at least you will have an appointment. Our reception team is the most stable that it has been for 3 years so we will carry on with this system for at least a year and then check the data to see how it works. As we have more data, we may be able to change things.

Question from Cllr: The receptionists are polite, but I still can’t get through to make an appointment. Waited for more than an hour at 8am, so phoned again at 10.30am only to be told that I should have phoned at 8am.

Answer: We need patients to only call the surgery for an appointment at 8am, however we receive calls about other non-urgent matters that cause the queue to be longer than needed. We will try to get better but there are simply not enough appointments for everyone.

Question from Cllr:  Do you collect statistics as to how many West Bergholt patients end up at the Creffield Medical Centre? Some patients do not drive and are having to pay for taxis to attend appointments.

Answer: We don’t have the manpower to manage the collection of statistics and would have to employ someone.  Cllr Harry Stone intervened at this point to say that the West Bergholt Care Network (0300 777 3100) could assist in getting patients to Creffield appointments.

Question from Cllr:  There were apparently 480 missed appointments before Christmas 2022, what do you intend to do about that?

Answer: 5% of appointments are missed and classed as “do not arrive” to which we send a phone message. If a patient has 3 x “do not arrive” we then send them a letter. We welcome ideas to resolve this. Each patient gets 10 minutes per appointment, so by the time we realise they are not attending that slot has passed so we can’t fill the appointment with anyone else.

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