A GPs’ surgery has been commended for its use of technology to improve patient access. Hampton Hill Medical Centre (www.hamptonhillmedicalcentre.com) in Middlesex was announced as the Vision Practice of the Year last month (January 2010) in recognition of the innovations that the practice has put in place during the past two years in the form of an automated phone and online appointment booking system, as well as an SMS messaging service for patients.

The centre, which has over 7,200 patients on its register, initiated the measures to improve the overall patient experience. “One of the first areas we looked at was communication,” explained Kerry Morley, Practice Manager at Hampton Hill. “Poor communication is a common problem at many practices across the country and is essential to both the smooth running of the surgery and patient satisfaction.”

The practice decided to install an automated booking service known as Patient Partner, developed by integrated communications specialist Voice Connect. The system enables patients to call and book or cancel appointments at anytime, except for a short window of time between 2am and 4am when the service is updated. “Patient Partner has eased call congestion and offers our patients increased flexibility in making appointments which they appreciate,” comments Kerry. “In conjunction with our other innovations, the system has greatly enhanced the service that we offer our patients.”

The practice has also introduced a service known as Vision Online which enables patients to book appointments and manage their healthcare online. In addition, patients are reminded about appointments and are invited to health check and surgery events via SMS text messaging.

“It is gratifying to have all the effort that we have put into improving services for our patients recognised, not just by the patients themselves, but also by the presentation of this award,” comments Kerry.

Missed appointments cost the NHS an estimated £600 million each year, with around 6.5 million appointments missed from 2007 to 2008. “Patient Partner was originally developed to help with the issue of missed appointments and poor communication,” explains Voice Connect’s Managing Director Stefan Olsberg. “So it is pleasing to hear that this, and other advances in technology, can make such a useful contribution to GPs’ surgeries.”

Book appointments any time at Boson medical practice

ONE of Boston’s largest medical practices has just unveiled a cutting edge system that will allow its patients to book appointments at any time of the day or night.

Westside Surgery, which has more than 8,000 patients, this week launched a new telephone system known as Patient Partner which enables people to call the surgery 24 hours a day to schedule a consultation with a doctor.

The practice says the system, together with its new online booking and prescription ordering service and late night opening on Monday and Tuesdays, will make it much easier for patients to access its services.

Practice manager Bronya Glet told the Target: “We are always keen to listen to what our patients want and the introduction of an automated system offers a great way of improving communication and choice for patients.

“Patient Partner is very easy to use. It detects spaces in the doctors’ diaries and allows the patient to choose the appointment time which best suits them by pressing a button on their touch tone phone.

“Naturally our patients may still call and speak with a receptionist if they wish.

“However, this new service enables them to bypass reception and call at anytime.

“This is particularly convenient for our working patients including those who work unsociable hours.

“It will also release time for our receptionists to attend to patient care.

“We are confident that it will be a great bonus for both patients and staff at Westside.”

For information about Westside Surgery log onto its website at www.westsidesurgery.co.uk

CLICK HERE to view story within the Boston Target.

Boston surgery makes it easier for patients to get in touch

Westside Surgery in Boston has launched a series of new measures designed to make it much easier for their patients to get in touch. The most recent initiative is the introduction of a new phone system known as Patient Partner which enables patients to call the surgery at any time of the night or day to book or cancel appointments. The service is due to go live at the surgery on Tuesday 16th February.  Together with the online booking and prescription ordering service and late night opening on Monday and Tuesday evenings, Patient Partner will make it much easier for surgery’s 8000 patients to access its services.

Patient Partner, which is already working successfully at another surgery in the area, complements Westside Surgery’s online booking and prescription service, SystmOnline.  Patient Partner has been specially designed by telecoms company Voice Connect to ease the problems that patients can face when trying to contact their local surgery by phone, offering increased choice in how and when appointments are made.

“We are always keen to listen to what our patients want and the introduction of an automated system offers a great way of improving communication and choice for patients,” explains Bronya Glet, Practice Manager at Westside Surgery. “Patient Partner is very easy to use: it detects spaces in the doctors’ diaries and allows the patient to choose the appointment time which best suits them by pressing a button on their touch tone phone.”

“Naturally our patients may still call and speak with a receptionist if they wish,” comments Bronya. “However, this new service enables them to bypass reception and call at anytime. This is particularly convenient for our working patients, including those who work unsociable hours. It will also release time for our receptionists to attend to patient care.  We are confident that it will be a great bonus for both patients and staff at Westside.”

Vision Practice of the Year

The 2009 Vision Practice of the Year has been announced. This year’s winning practice uses innovative technology to provide competitive services and improve patient access to the practice.

Hampton Hill Medical Centre in Middlesex were awarded the title of Vision Practice of the Year for their utilisation of additional patient-centric solutions, including:

• Voice Connect’s Patient Partner automated telephone-based appointment booking service;
• SMS text messaging to remind patients about their appointments;
• Vision Online Services web-based appointment service.

Voice Connect would like to take this opportunity to congratulate everyone at the practice.

Medical Messenger (SMS text messaging) is a unique solution that provides your practice with a low cost way to communicate with patients by letter and/or FREE text messages.  Whilst there are other solutions available for text messaging, Medical Messenger provides you with a complete postal service, which includes paper/envelopes, printing, preparation and postage for just 30p per letter.

All you need is the Medical Messenger software and an NHS Mail account.  The annual licence fee for Medical Messenger relates to your patient list size and costs between £350 -£550 per annum.  Text messages are FREE and the postal service account credit starts from £300 + VAT, which equals one thousand letters at 30p per letter. (Prices exclude VAT)

To obtain your FREE Medical Messenger (SMS text messaging) Information Pack CLICK HERE adding the word ‘info’ to the email subject line.

Your Secure Patient Communication Solution Provides a 40% Saving on Postal Costs and Unlimited FREE Text Messages

The demands placed upon practice staff to communicate with patients and the associated costs to your practice are greater than ever.  A number of letters leave your practice each week confirming appointments to attend specific clinics, alerting patients to the availability of flu/swine flu vaccinations and for healthcare promotion.  On average, it costs your practice 59p per letter? – including stationary, printing, your/staff time and the price for postage.

The government is also insisting that practices contact patients to remind them to attend their appointments or cancel unwanted appointments in order to reduce, DNAs (did not attends) and the associated costs incurred by NHS.

Medical Messenger is a unique solution that provides your practice with a low cost way to communicate with patients by letter and/or FREE text messages.  Whilst there are other solutions available for text messaging, Medical Messenger provides you with a complete postal service, which includes paper/envelopes, printing, preparation and postage for just 30p per letter.

All you need is the Medical Messenger software and an NHS Mail account.  The annual licence fee for Medical Messenger relates to your patient list size and costs between £350 -£550 per annum.  Text messages are FREE and the postal service account credit starts from £300 + VAT, which equals one thousand letters at 30p per letter. (Prices exclude VAT)

To obtain your FREE Medical Messenger information pack, including your Medical Messenger order form and a quotation CLICK HERE or call 0116 232 4640. (To obtain a quotation, you will need to add your patient list size to the email)

You will save hours of staff time and reduce postal costs by more than 40% with Medical Messenger’s Postal Service.  Contact us today for your order form.

Claim Your FREE Patient Partner Information Pack

Katy Fox, a mother with two young children, wakes up at 7am and finds that her youngest daughter is unwell.  Even though her surgery is closed, Katy immediately telephones them and selects the option to book an appointment.  She identifies her daughter by using her telephone keypad to key in their contact telephone number and her daughter’s date of birth.  She then goes on to book the first available appointment with any doctor and hangs up the telephone.

Patient Partner supplies your practice with virtual receptionists who will work for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week booking, cancelling, checking and changing appointments for your patients.  Through the use of Patient Partner, you increase patient access, whilst remaining in control of the system and the allocation of appointments.

“Patient Partner has helped to ease call pressure in the mornings and has made it easier for our patients to contact us.  This means that it releases receptionists’ time to work on other important tasks within the practice. Using the latest telephone technology also helps to support the image of the practice as patient-centred and forward thinking.” Anthea Doran, Practice Manager

A Patient Partner information pack is now available to you as a practice manager.  This pack will give you a brief overview of Patient Partner and illustrate the ways in which it is already helping other surgeries.  To obtain your FREE information pack CLICK HERE adding ‘info pack’ to the email subject line or call: 0116 232 4640.

Your existing telephone number remains the same and does not have to change in order for your practice to use Patient Partner.  Call us today for further details on 0116 232 4640.

How white is it outside your window? – Voice Connect provide a text messaging gateway service that will help you contact groups of people quickly during these periods of snowfall. It’s an effective way to inform people of possible closures and/or changes to times of meetings/events.

Martin Dennis is on hand to help you get signed up to the text messaging gateway service. 

Call: 0116 232 4640 or CLICK HERE.

For more information regarding the gateway also visit www.vcsms.co.uk.

Case Study Preview

‘Patient Partner is a marvellous system’ says Kingthorne Group Practice

Patient access is a problem for many GP surgeries and is also an issue that has been identified by the government. Senior staff at the Kingthorne Group Practice decided to install an automated appointment booking system in order to reduce the number of calls into the reception team and to offer their patients increased flexibility in making appointments. “We felt that using Patient Partner would enable us to give our patients a better service, as well as reducing pressure on our reception team,” explains Practice Manager, Alison Maw. “We were keen to offer them the opportunity to book their appointments at any time of day as we felt this would improve patient access. However, we did have some concerns prior to going ahead, mainly about how much our patients would use the system.”

To obtain your complete copy of the case study CLICK HERE adding ‘Kingthorne’ to the subject line of the email.

Case Study Preview

‘Patient Partner works very well with EMIS’ at Pembroke Road Surgery

Extended opening hours and a steadily growing population mean that phone lines at most surgeries across the UK are constantly busy and, prior to installing Patient Partner, Pembroke Road was no different. The practice decided to look into using an automated appointment booking system due to a progressive increase in telephone calls – which in turn contributed to a general increase in workload for reception staff.

To receive your copy of the Pembroke Road Surgery case study CLICK HERE and add ‘Pembroke’ to the email subject line.

Cumbria Neighbourhood Watch aiming to widen its net

A seemingly innocuous van is driven down a street and pulls up outside a house.  Out of it step 2 men. Nothing particularly strange in that, but they then shiftily begin to look around and scan the scene before disappearing to the back of a property.

Minutes later, they reappear before driving off – thinking they’ve drawn no attention to themselves.

But what they don’t realise is that they’ve been watched every step of the way.

Suspecting they could be up to no good, someone – already warned to beware of suspicious vehicles in their area – has taken a note of the registration number and descriptions of the pair.

They discover their neighbour’s house has been broken into. Now police are on the suspects’ trail. Thanks to one person’s vigilance, they have a head start on catching them.

This is just one type of scenario where Neighbourhood Watch comes into its own.

In Cumbria, there are 3,000 such sets of watchful eyes who are members of the organisation – providing often critical information to help bring criminals to justice.

And with as many people as that against them, crooks in the county can never be sure who’s taking note as they go about their illegal work.

More than 40 crimes in Cumbria were solved last year thanks to the work of Neighbourhood Watch with police receiving more than 800 calls from its members. Countless more offences were prevented because of measures they have taken to protect themselves and make their areas safer places to live.

The success of the movement and plans for the future will fall under the spotlight at Cumbria Neighbourhood Watch Association’s (CNWA) annual general meeting on Saturday.

Among those who will mark the organisation’s contribution there are Cumbria’s Chief Constable, Craig Mackey, and Chief Fire Officer Dominic Harrison.

Dr John Perkins is chairman of the association, the charity that represents watch members at the heart of the movement’s work.

He insists those involved are not so-called curtain twitchers – as stereotype would have many of them – but people who want to help their communities.

“One of the things people nationally are trying to do is reposition Neighbourhood Watch as a genuine community-based grassroots movement about people getting together and making their communities nicer, more pleasant places to live,” Dr Perkins said.

“We’re not the police. They have their role. Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) are getting much more involved with the movement and have a role to play.

“We’re just people trying, where we can, to support police in their efforts. The police, through their work are trying to support us as well in trying to make Cumbria a safer, stronger place to live and work.

“There is an image of curtain-twitching and we need to get rid of that. We’re not a bunch of nosey-parkers.”

Neighbourhood Watch encompasses villages and estates across Cumbria – and increasing numbers in every imaginable place are being urged to join up.

It comes in various guises – from the one covering people’s homes to specialist schemes such as Farm Watch.

Among one of its keys in helping fight crime is the Voice Connect scheme, through which messages – including warnings of potential crime risks in an area or issuing pleas for vigilance – can be relayed from police to members.

Members, by raising issues from their area, can also help influence policing priorities.

Dr Perkins, who also represents Cumbria on the regional Neighbourhood Watch forum and sits on a national network, has been involved with the organisation for about two years and is the scheme coordinator for his home village of Gamblesby in the Eden valley.

He said: “We had a couple of burglaries in Gamblesby and people said we should set up a Neighbourhood Watch scheme. I said I’d get it organised.

“Paul Caine, who was a development officer at that time, said the board were looking for people and asked if I’d be interested.

“I went along to the meeting and found virtually everybody had resigned. Suddenly, there were a group of people thinking ‘what do we do? Do we try and get this moving forward again?’”

They have managed that and, appropriately, the theme of Saturday’s AGM – at which about 100 delegates are expected at the University of Cumbria’s Newton Rigg campus, near Penrith – is “moving forward”.

The chief constable, who will speak there, is in no doubt about the importance of Neighbourhood Watch – thanking all those involved – and has encouraged people to join their nearest scheme.

Mr Mackey said: “Neighbourhood Watch is about bringing people together to help improve quality of life for communities.

“We have a number of Neighbourhood Watch teams that provide us with invaluable experience and knowledge of their areas. There can never be enough volunteers.

“By taking an interest in the issues that matter most to you, your neighbours are playing an active part in decision-making, we can work together to agree priorities and find the best solutions for the community.”

Dr Perkins is also adamant that the work done by its volunteers has a positive impact.

“Neighbourhood Watch does make a difference,” he said. “There’s research which says it reduces crime and disorder. Messages from neighbourhoods have resulted in arrests.

“The other thing is perception and fear of crime.

“People may be more secure, but do they feel more secure? That is a big issue Neighbourhood Watch can help with.”

West Cumbria is one of the key areas being targeted to establish more watch schemes. Nationally, efforts are being made to get more younger people involved.

As well as crime-fighting, Neighbourhood Watch is also becoming more involved with firefighters and crime and disorder reduction partnerships on wider community safety work.

David Farmer, a former chief Crown prosecutor for Cumbria, was employed by CNWA and Cumbria County Council for a year to examine the work of Neighbourhood Watch and is now a volunteer board member.

He is positive about the role the organisation can continue to play in future.

As well as strengthening the strong connections between watch members and neighbourhood policing teams, Mr Farmer believes the work can be expanded further.

“A really good example is the increasingly strong link with the fire service and Neighbourhood Watch,” he added.

“Neighbourhood Watch is about working with volunteers in the community.

“You know of a 90-year-old lady next door and keep on her property and that is as much keeping an eye in fire and rescue terms.”

Other speakers at Saturday’s AGM will be county council chairman Roger Bingham, High Sheriff Susan Thornely, county council official Lorraine Smyth

Anyone who spots a crime in action should call police by dialing 999. Call 0845 3300247 to advise police about a past crime or suspicious activity. Crimestoppers can be contacted anonymously on 0800 555111.

For more information on CNWA, go to www.cumbria-nhw.org