How the PCT measures up
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As a PCT we feel that significant progress has been made on improving health and providing the best possible healthcare services over the year. This was despite a very challenging year which saw several major changes.
Services provided by GPs and their Teams
Firstly GP practices, who had opted for a new contract, were monitored for the quality of their services using a Quality and Outcomes Framework.
Hospital Waiting Times
Once again performance targets related to the length of time patients wait for an out-patient appointment or for a hospital operation were achieved. All patients waited less than the national target of 9 months for a hospital in-patient procedure or operation, with the majority waiting less than 6 months, which is the new maximum inpatient waiting time target for December 2005.
NHS Dentistry
Another area of significant achievement for local people was the increase in availability of NHS dentistry. Although the situation remains challenging across the whole country, plans were put in West Gloucestershire to achieve an additional 28,000 NHS registrations by the summer of 2005.
Access to Services
There have also been significant achievements in waiting times for A&E treatment. At the end of 2004-2005, 98.5% of West Gloucestershire patients were being seen within 4 hours of arrival at Emergency Departments in Gloucestershire, against the national target of 98%.
This has been a challenging target to meet and our local provider, the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has done very well to achieve this. It should be viewed alongside a 10% increase in emergency activity across the county, which coincided with the move to a new Out of Hours Service in Gloucestershire.
Increased use by patients of ambulance services, minor injuries and A&E services and primary care out of hours services has put considerable strain on the Gloucestershire Health community as a whole. During this period of time the local Ambulance Trust was unable to meet its 75% target for the number of emergency calls responded to within 8 minutes.
PCT Patient Survey 2005
Lastly, learning from the experience of our patients is very important to us and one way in which the PCT receives feedback is through the annual patient survey.
The purpose of the survey is to understand what patients think of healthcare services provided by the Trust and the results contribute to the Performance Indicators (Star Ratings) published every year by the Healthcare Commission.
This year's survey was based on a random sample of 850 patients registered with a GP in the PCT area and a response rate of 49.3% was achieved (compared to the national average of 45.2%). The survey asked patients about access to and waiting times for services, the quality and choice of services available and how clean and comfortable healthcare premises were. Overall the Trust scored better than the previous year and further details can be found on the PCT website.
Practice Based Commissioning
One of the new national initiatives during the year has been the introduction of Practice Based Commissioning. This involves groups of GP practices taking on budget management and decision making responsibility on behalf of the PCT to develop services to respond directly to the needs of their local population. The North Forest Practice Based Commissioning Pilot, involving 6 GP Practices, has developed during 2004-2005. The practices have already made progress in identifying the needs of their population and purchasing ('buying') services specifically to meet those needs.
Staff Survey
The results of our 2004 Staff Survey were based on a response rate of 60%, compared to 48% in the previous year. Staff reported that the PCT had improved significantly in the following areas which affected them:-
- Flexible working
- Appraisals
- Staff involvement in making decisions
- Reporting incidents and near misses
2004 Primary Care Survey
In May 2004, the PCT received the results of an important survey, which is helping the Trust to develop a deeper understanding of the patient’s experience of care.
The findings of the 2004 Primary Care Survey published by ‘health watchdog’, the Healthcare Commission, supports the PCT in identifying areas of strong performance, highlights areas where there is room for improvement and sets priorities for the development of action plans.
The Survey was based on a sample of 850 patients randomly drawn from the patients registered with Family Doctors in the PCT area and covered five key areas of patient care:
- Access to services and waiting
- Safety and quality of care
- Better information and patient choice
- Building relationships between patient and health professionals
- Cleanliness/comfort.
An above average response rate of 50% was achieved and the Trust received significantly better than average responses to questions relating to:
- access to ‘out of hours’ services and satisfaction with the way in which ‘out of hours’ calls are dealt with
- communication with patients on availability of test results
- patients being treated with dignity and respect
- patients being given enough time to discuss health/medical problems with the GP
- patient involvement in decisions about their care
- explanations given to patients about reasons for treatment and providing answers to questions
- the healthcare professional’s knowledge about health conditions and treatment
- cleanliness of surgeries and health centres
- access to ‘out of hours’ dental care and;
- advice from pharmacists on medicines.
Areas identified by some patients for further improvement included:
- access to GP appointments
- dental patients’ involvement in decisions.
Interim Chief Executive, Penny Harris said:
“It is pleasing to see that patients have provided such positive feedback in so many important areas such as communication with primary care staff, access to information and involvement in decision making about care and treatment.” “We will be working closely with staff, patients and our partners to focus on making the improvements to services that our local population tell us they would like to see.”
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