When we began this journey we never imagined it would be easy, and it hasn't been. There have been, and will continue to be, a multitude of challenges that have to be faced and overcome if we are to succeed in our goal of improving everyones' healthcare experience, and succeed we will. We know that our teams are improving primary healthcare for thousands of people across the country, in numerous locations, where previously insufficient or inadequate healthcare provision existed.
The facts speak for themselves: - in Dewsbury in West Yorkshire we opened a new practice in late 2006 and now have a patient list of over 2500, almost all of these were patients who previously could not register with a GP in the area. In Harlow we run Saturday morning and midweek evening surgeries, a development that came from a request at a patient forum meeting; and QOF results across our 38 practices often average in excess of 90%, many of them an increase on the previous year. Other GPs like what we are doing, or so it seems by the number who approach us to discuss working with us in one of several ways, from partnership to provision of support or enhanced services. There are those within healthcare who are still unsure about what our way of working means for them, and we are working hard to demonstrate the benefits that can be enjoyed by all parties.
And all of this delivered within and as part of the NHS - after all, ChilversMcCrea Healthcare may be a privately owned company but it operates within the NHS, working at all levels to develop new approaches and improvements for example we were closely involved with the development of APMS as a contract, one which is now widely used within primary care.
We use some procedures that are more recognisable as coming from the commercial sector and which have not always been used within the NHS, e.g. direct marketing to communicate messages to a wide area; and at times this is viewed with suspicion and caution by our peers. But rest assured, we are not trying to poach patients, or take over practices by stealth, what we are doing is using practical methods to communicate with our patients and people within a practice area, about services that are available. And not surprisingly patients like positive communication, they like to know what is happening and why, they feel empowered when they can make requests for new services, after all the practices are not ours they are there for the patients.
Patients at all our practices have the opportunity to be involved through patient forums and many of the latest developments have come about as a result of patient requests, inlcuding Saturday morning and midweek evening surgeries at many of our locations.