The Corner Surgery is committed to improving the experience of using the surgery for our patients and their carers, wherever possible.

On this page, we will list recent examples of where your valuable feedback has helped us to make the improvements you wanted.

 

New Appointments System (July 2017)

  • We are experiencing: increased demand for appointments and more work being moved from hospitals to GPs
  • Patients are reporting: difficulty getting through on the telephone and fewer appointments available when you do
  • Therefore, the following changes were made to keep the system as fair as possible, whilst prioritising those who are more unwell:
    • More pre-bookable appointments available - please ring after 9:30am or use Patient Access online
    • On the day appointments available from 8:30am by telephone only to ensure that
      • Patients have similar access to these appointments
      • Receptionists are available to answer the telephone
    • You may be asked if your problem is urgent for today and the reason for your appointment, to ensure that
      • We prioritise the patients who are most unwell
      • We deal with your problem in the most appropriate way

 

New Telephone System (July 2018)

  • You Said: "the practice is let down by difficulty making an appointment by telephone"
  • We Listened: the practice's partners purchased a new telephone system, which means:
    • We can handle more calls at a time
    • If all our phone lines are busy, your call may be placed in a queue
    • Your call may be recorded for training and monitoring purposes

Please see our News Item for more information on the new telephone system.

 

New Website Launch (November 2018)

  • You Said: "the practice's website is disorganised and out of date"
  • We Listened: the practice commissioned a brand new website:
    • It has a much more modern look
    • All of the information within has been updated
    • There are links to trusted health resources and self-care advice

We hope that our new website can be a first port of call when one of our patients needs advice about their health and wellbeing.

 

Addition to the Clinical Team (October 2020)

  • You Said: in the National Patient Survey, patients were less happy about the experience of making an appointment
  • We Listened: we have employed an Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP), Carol Thornton, to work alongside the GPs:
    • This means we have more clinical appointments available daily, reducing the potential wait for an appointment
    • We no longer need to employ locum GPs to cover leave, which should improve the continuity of patient care
    • Our ANP has particular experience in urgent care, allowing the GPs more time to focus on more complex cases

Mrs Thornton is highly-trained and experienced at assessing, diagnosing and treating many medical problems. This development should enhance patient access at the surgery & improve the experience of making an appointment.

 

Updated Appointments System (September 2021)

  • Patients reported that they wanted a choice of face to face appointment
  • We Listened: we have updated our appointments system:
    • You will be given a choice of telephone or face-to-face consultation
    • Our reception staff will be able to assist you with that decision
    • A face-to-face consultation should be the default for new problems, or if you feel you might require an examination
    • A telephone consultation is most appropriate for following-up a medical problem that has already been assessed face-to-face
    • We are aware that many working-age patients prefer the convenience of a telephone consultation 
    • Thankfully, it has become possible to assess many more problems remotely using cameraphone photographs and video consultations
    • We also have access to evening and weekend appointments at the 7-day GP service, if this is more convenient

We will continue to seek regular feedback from our Patient Participation Group.

 

Response to the local Patient Access Survey & National GP Patient Survey 2022 (December 2022)

  • You Said: a common theme in the results of these surveys was that patients are struggling to make contact with the practice by telephone, primarily due to the long caller queue in the mornings.
  • We Listened: we have made the following changes...
    • Our telephone system has been reprogrammed to shorten the opening message, the various caller options have been removed, & callers are no longer told their position in the queue - this means that patients now enter the caller queue far more quickly than before
    • We have had an additional incoming telephone handset installed at the practice, allowing three administrators to answer calls at at any one time now, rather than two
    • We have employed an additional administrator & one of their roles is to work on the caller queue first thing in the morning - this means that patients do not wait in the caller queue for as long as before to book their appointment
    • We have employed additional clinical & nursing capacity & we are now a training practice, so we host junior doctors including those training to become GPs - this means we now have more appointments each day, making it quicker & easier for our administrators to manage appointment requests
    • We have completed a medication review project, supporting the safe transition of appropriate patients from 28-day to 56-day repeat prescribing, which has released some GP & administrator capacity
    • We have started making a proportion of our on-the-day Advanced Nurse Practitioner appointments available to book online each day, e.g. using the NHS App, & we promoted this change by text message.