"In serious need of an overhaul / new practice..."

Thank you so much for your positive comments regarding the Doctors here, they work incredibly hard and will really appreciate the feedback. In order to increase access to GP's we have to share some of the administrative tasks traditionally completed by GP's, amongst the administration team and so all of the staff are working to full capacity – the number of enquires and tasks coming into the surgery continues to rise and unfortunately the budget does not; we do not have capacity to recruit more staff or GP’s.

So what are we doing? We are looking towards technology to help us improve the service to our patients, we are currently working on a new website which is geared towards those using mobile phones and tablets as well as desktop computers - we hope to encourage our patients to look to the new website to answer queries and how to manage minor ailments at home before phoning into the surgery.

WATCH OUT FOR THE LAUNCH OF THE WEBSITE TOWARDS THE END OF AUGUST – our reception team really do have to ask our patients if they have accessed other health advisors such as NHS 11 or community pharmacists as we simply cannot offer every patient an appointment when they would like it - remember we too are patients of other surgeries and share the frustration of not being able to get an appointment at a time that is convenient to us and wish things could be different. Our patients would really help themselves and the team to offer a better service if they could go to a pharmacy to purchase readily available ‘over the counter’ medications and take the advice of the pharmacist if need be.

NHS 111 is there to offer general advice and the minor illness centres at Putnoe or St Neots can help with those minor ailments that may need attention on the day.

All of these things will help our team to better serve those in genuine need of a GP.

When the surgery is closed over the lunchtime period we are not sitting around eating lunch we are returning phone calls to patients that can only speak to us during their lunch hour from work, we have deliveries into the dispensary which are put away at this time, the data entry tasks are completed from the morning sessions, we have meetings which include palliative care, clinical governance and patient participation group (you are very welcome to attend) staff training (including Customer care) we are able to open the large filing drawers in the waiting room to add to and retrieve patient records and so on.

We recognise that some patients struggle to collect medication or prescriptions in the hours we are open (8.30 - 1pm and 2pm - 6pm Monday to Friday for prescription collections) and as patients you do have a choice to opt for electronic prescriptions to go to a pharmacy of choice, either close to work or one with extended opening hours , it can be in any area that suits you but do remember all of your prescriptions will go there rather than be dispensed at the surgery (even when you come in to see the Doctor and are prescribed items not usually on your repeat).

We are working together with other practices in the county sharing best practice and looking to see what we can do to help each other survive in this very difficult time for the NHS, we are stream lining policies and procedures and looking to see which services we might be able to share going into the future - we want to continue to provide a health care service in Great Barford and surrounding villages, both I (Practice Manager) and all the staff strive to give a really good service wherever we can, this includes being polite to our patients and although it is our practice to share comments and complaints I will reassure them that I recognise how very hard they are working to help you all.