Increase In Demand

You may have read several articles in the media recently about the exponential increase in demand for GP services, and our practice is no different. We are currently dealing with more requests and patient contacts than ever before. Our reception staff and clinicians are trying their utmost in these challenging times, yet we are still having instances of abuse directed at staff.

There was a GP survey carried out recently across the country, in which the public were invited to submit their views about General Practice and their own registered surgery. We got some brilliant ratings, and in some areas we were top of the leader board in the local area. We also got some lovely comments about our surgery in general, and our team of staff. However, there were still some comments submitted such as ‘staff are useless’ and ‘staff are completely incompetent’ which is extremely disappointing and disheartening for all of us when we are doing everything we can with limited resources.

You will see from the graph below that whilst hospital doctor numbers have increased, GP numbers have actually decreased. This is at a time when demand for GP services has skyrocketed, and the general population aged 65+ with more complex health needs is also rapidly increasing.

You will see from the below 2 tables how things look in terms of our own numbers at the surgery.

As you will see, we have actually increased the number of appointments that we offer, the vast majority of which are face to face. We have also seen a huge jump in the number of patient actions per month (this could be anything from reception calls, to blood results being filed – Patient actions is how many times records have been accessed in a month).

We completely appreciate the frustration that our patients sometimes feel when they aren’t able to access services as quickly as they might like. However, our staff are only human, and there are only so many appointments that we can offer per day. We are constantly looking at ways that we can improve our service, and this will always be the case. But with all this in mind, one reminder that we must stress – Staff abuse is completely unacceptable and will be dealt with under our zero tolerance policy.

We hope that the above gives some insight in to the challenges that we are facing in General Practice at the moment, and we would like to thank you all for your co-operation and understanding.

The Aughton Surgery Team.