Enter and View: Watling Street Practice - Stony Stratford Medical Centre

The purpose of this Enter and View programme was to engage with patients, their relatives, or carers, to explore their overall experience of Watling Street Practice – this visit took place at Stony Stratford Medical Centre.

Summary

Stony Stratford is part of the newly formed Watling Street Practice: The partners of Hilltops Medical Centre, Stony Medical Centre and Watling Vale Medical Centre that from 1 July 2024 the three practices joined together to become Watling Street Practice.

What we found

"Patients told us that they felt they were given time when they had an appointment, and but they didn’t feel they got to see a regular GP, but they did see the same nurse for ongoing care. People told us this gave them continuity of care and stopped them having to explain their history to a different person at each appointment. 

Most interactions at reception remained private, while some could be overheard, this was largely due to the general quietness in the reception area. 

Patients were seen to time all day, there were no long waits.

The practice has also just taken on a contract for the care of refugees in Milton Keynes...as most patients already feel the catchment are is far too wide...this news may not be accepted well by patients who are already finding it difficult to get appointments at their chosen practice."

What patients told us:

‘If I have kids, always get them an appointment it's great.’

‘I usually get an appointment so it’s okay.’

‘Software is unpredictable and unfriendly – I work in IT; this is not a good system.’

Our recommendations include:

• Consider tasking the PPG or an Admin Team member to offer ‘Tech Support/ training’ sessions for the new AccruX system.
• Consider an exercise to evaluate barriers for patients using online systems which could highlight opportunities to build trust in online access systems and support patients to use them, freeing up telephone lines for patients who are digitally excluded.
• Consider giving more information to patients around how you manage demand.
• Invest in staff training to communicate the feeling of residents surrounding ‘rough or brisk’ treatment during personal care from the male care staff, the staff are otherwise well liked, it was felt they did not know their own strength.