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Northlands Surgery Page

The GP Partners and all staff here at Northlands Surgery in Calne have been working hard to improve the patient experience at the surgery. Practice Manager Robert Baggs explains what they have been doing

We have tried to improve on the levels of communication in terms of the information and services available to patients, whilst at the surgery, but also available to them without visiting.

We are the first surgery in Calne to have our own web-site, www.northlands-surgery.co.uk. This provides the same level of information that has been available in our practice leaflet but also contains additional items such as photographs of the staff and also a regularly updated news section which provides details of changes at Northlands, both in terms of staffing and also of services available to patients.

These services include administrative tasks that patients would previously have had to phone or visit the Surgery to carry out, such as making or cancelling appointments and ordering repeat prescriptions, both of which can now be done on-line.

Another recent innovation was to implement an electronic touch-screen self check-in system so that rather than queue at the reception desk, patients are able to update our computer system themselves to inform the doctor or nurse that they have arrived. Patients do have the option of advising reception staff at the desk that they have arrived but the new system has proved to be extremely popular and has reduced the demands on our front line staff.

The system is very simple to use and simply involves the patient being prompted to confirm their sex, date in the month and the month of their birth. They may then possibly be asked for the year of their birth, but only if the previous information does not uniquely identify who they are. Once this information has been confirmed the details of the patient's appointment will be shown for the patient to confirm followed by instructions as to where the patient should wait.

We now have two waiting rooms, one upstairs and one downstairs. Previously patients would have been given numbers, indicating their position in the queue, when they arrived but they are now called in either personally or by the tannoy system. This system has proved to be extremely popular with our patients and our staff are always on hand to provide assistance if the patient needs it.

The latest improvements we have introduced in each waiting room are large electronic notice boards. We are one of a few surgeries in Wiltshire, that have been selected by a company called In4Health, to carry out a three-month pilot scheme with a view to rolling out to all surgeries if successful. These screens come at no cost to Northlands Surgery or the NHS and are being funded through a joint partnership with BT.

The screens display details of various services available at the surgery together with details of current health care and healthy lifestyle advice together with notices from the surgery and also local news feeds from the Wiltshire Gazette and national news from other sources. The success of these screens has been noted, in the flexibility we have in communicating information to patients and also in terms of interest to the patients.

The information booth or interactive unit, as it is called, is provided by the same company as the screens.

The unit allows the user to look at more information, including web-sites, relating to those items shown on the screens together with providing access to our own web-site.
One additional facility on the interactive unit allows us to conduct patient surveys where the patient can indicate their satisfaction with and comment on various services provided within the surgery. Only basic surveys are currently loaded but we hope to develop this in the future.

Most of our patients would rather not be at the surgery but we are working hard to ensure that their visit is as relaxed and as comfortable as possible and we are intending that this process will continue.

Your participation and input is always welcome, please click here to download information on our Patient Participation Group