Enter and view: Binfield Surgery, Bracknell Forest
126 patients (29 during the Enter and View visit and 97 online) were asked two questions – what was good about the surgery and what could be improved.
Summary of findings
- At the time of our visit, the evidence is that:
- Patients are, overall, happy with the quality of the care and treatment they receive and felt they had enough time in their consultation to address their concerns however; this was often expressed with a caveat such as they know who to make an appointment with to ensure this outcome.
- The waiting room is cluttered, has old unhygienic seating and although there is a wealth of information displayed for patients some of this is out of date.
- The clutter in the waiting room and the design of the reception desk causes accessibility problems for those with mobility difficulties, particularly wheelchair users.
- Patients are concerned about the surgery’s capacity in light of planned housing developments particularly as the surgery is already short-staffed and utilises locums which reduces consistency of care.
- Some patients have expressed concern about waiting times. On the day of our visit 41.5% of patients were seen on time, 38% were seen within 10 minutes of their appointment time and 20.5% had a longer wait (Maximum wait was 25 minutes).
- The surgery does not appear to respond to feedback perceived as negative or complaints in a constructive, helpful manner.
- Although the surgery has adopted a local telephone number, the old 0844 number is still operational.
Recommendations
- In the short term, the surgery should remove unnecessary furniture (low tables) in the waiting room to improve accessibility and also remove out of date posters and leaflets. Longer-term the surgery should consider new seating and redecoration of the area.
- The surgery should consider, in consultation with patients, the advantages of purchasing an electronic patient call in system (to save practitioner time)
- Although the surgery cannot easily extend the car-parking facilities, they could look at some measures to alleviate the capacity problems and/or pedestrian safety such as providing alternative staff car parking or incentives to use public transport (where suitable), clear road markings and not allowing delivery drivers to block bays.
- Awareness campaign for the Surgery Patient Group.
- The surgery should continue with its regular information emails/texts to patients however there should be an awareness of the anxiety that can be caused by the language/tone of communication around the issues of short staffing and appointment access and the possible impact on other local services (e.g. use of the Urgent Care Centre).
- To disconnect or put a redirection message on the 0844 line.
Downloads
To read full report please download it here
