Thank you to those of you who have completed feedback using the Friends and Family sheets.
Results for January are:
– 93 people said they are extremely likely to recommend us (65%)
– 34 said they are likely to recommend us (24%)
– 8 said neither likely nor unlikely (6%)
– 4 said unlikely (3%)
– 1 said extremely unlikely (1%)
This gives us a net promoter score of: 57%
This is the highest ever! (In the summer when we experienced many challenges, we got 46%)
We also got a lot of written feedback, much is similar to previous months but we can also see our work to resolve the problems has helped in many areas too. These highlighted the following issues – all of which we are pleased to say we know about and are working on:
The waiting time to get an appointment, especially with your own GP
All GP practices nationally are struggling and you probably have now heard in the media about the crisis in General Practice. We are facing reduced funding, additional work being transferred from other services unfunded, rising ill-health, rising patient demand and a big shortfall in the number of GPs. We are doing all we can to provide the best care we can within the resources we have and we appreciate your understanding. You can read more on leaflets we have in the practice.
The time it takes for us to answer the phone, especially on prescription line
Over the summer we had a number of major events that affected our ability to answer the phones as quickly as usual. We are pleased that all of this is now behind us. We have also recruited three new reception team members and they are now settled so things are much better and improving all the time.
At busy times, we prioritise the main lines as these are usually people who are unwell and need help, whereas the prescription line is more ‘routine’ and there are a number of other ways you can order online. Whilst we don’t reduce prescription line availability easily, we do consciously do this if we need the resources elsewhere. The online ordering service is now really popular and works really well. So if you have access to the internet, ask for your ‘Pin’ and you can then register and order all day, every day!
That we over-run at times
We book appointments at 10-15 minute intervals but occasionally patients need more time than this or something urgent arises and take the GP away from their appointment list temporarily. We do try to avoid this as much as possible. We think it is important that patients who need extra time – for example who need to be admitted to hospital – are given the time they need and so we appreciate other patients understanding if we do run late.