Overview - How to Enhance Patient Experience
NHS Bolton PCT provides primary care services to Bolton’s population of 261,000. One of the most important channels for offering primary care in the area is through their 91 PCT contract GP Surgeries. The Derby Practice is a typical GP practice serving the local community, with a wide range of demographics utilising their services including children’s health, family planning, heart diseases and maternity services.
Click here to download Derby GP Practice Case Study PDF.
Situation
The Department of Health set up a National Pilot Programme in GP practices to investigate how the use of real-time patient feedback can help drive up performance improvement, and enhance patient experience within general practice. As a participating PCT, NHS Bolton was empowered to measure patient satisfaction in a designated GP Practice and utilise patient feedback to design and improve service. The Derby Practice had the aim of implementing real-time feedback technologies such as kiosks and tablets to illustrate responsiveness, allowing the Practice to capture patient feedback on a continuous basis. The outcome was intended to highlight areas for improvement as well as demonstrating areas of good performance to staff and patients.
Solution
CRT has successfully worked with The Derby Practice in Bolton to capture ongoing feedback from patients and to use this information to improve patient’s experience of care. Near real-time technologies such as ViewPoint Touch Screen kiosks and ViewPoint Tablet PCs have been successfully implemented - allowing the practice to capture patient feedback on a continuous basis, quickly highlighting areas for improvement as well as demonstrating areas of high performance to staff and patients.
The Department of Health Pilot Programme objectives were all achieved.
Benefits to the GP Practice
• Improved telephone access to allow for more on the day appointments to be made.
• Introduced new slots to catch up with scheduled timings when necessary, to avoid waiting times between booking in and consultation.
• Improve patient access to a midwife.
“The results illustrate how capturing feedback from patients on a continuous basis – and acting on this feedback by implementing change – can make a real difference to their experience.”
Bernie Gildea, Service Development Manager
