Following a series of complaints from the general public and users of the facility, Oakham Medical Practice have spoken about the ways in which local people can make the most of their surgery and help the team provide the best care possible. 

During the pandemic, the accessibility of local medical centres declined nationally, with most GPs using phone consultations to help their patients while face-to-face contact was limited. 

However, many local surgeries have continued using this phone call system, which has prompted complaints from users who feel that they are struggling to access the care that they need – as seen in the open letter to Oakham Medical Practice published by local lady, Harriet Father, in the latter half of April. 

However, it appears that Oakham Medical Practice has in fact increased its accessibility through using this system. Since before the pandemic to now, the appointments have increased by 16%, with approximately 169 appointments offered every day, on the day.  

Lucy Pearson, Partner GP, said that: "Statistics can be misleading. For example, 44% of our appointments in December were face-to-face. That may have dropped as a percentage recently to 39.5% but that is because we have simply added more phone call appointments not actually reducing our face-to-face appointments.

"This gives people a very negative perception of access at Oakham Medical Practice, when in reality we were top of 10 local practices for access.

"For access OMP was shown to be top in their provision of Same day appointments (45%) and those offered with in 7 days (88%) which is the preferred model.

"And in the top 30% for clinical outcomes when benchmarked against peers according to the East Leicestershire and Rutland CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group)."

While statistically access to medical care seems strong, it appears that getting through to the surgery has been the major hurdle for many users. However, the practice take bookings online every morning from 7am, which is a good way to avoid the queues. 

Online consultations, which help with triage and access, are perfect for non-urgent contact if you can't take a call due to work or other reasons and are easily accessible via the Oakham Medical Practice website without online access. Patients can also access their records for results rather than calling the surgery if they have registered for online access.

A major cause of the high demand placed upon the medical care system has been the nationwide recruitment issues, which are particularly acute in rural areas such as Rutland. A lack of not only front of house staff, but also General Practitioners has put the surgery under strain, with the Patient Services Team (PST) and GPs such as Lucy covering the shifts of anyone on holiday, sick leave, maternity leave, and of course any team members off with Covid. 

Oakham Medical Practice are currently recruiting for applicants to join their Patient Services Team. However, they are currently providing above national levels of access clinically. 

The team added: "The impact of recruitment issues on PST means longer waits for the phones to be answered but this is not impacting on access being achieved for patients on the day."

The team have asked that the public be patient while they search for staff to fill these roles, adding: "We don't enjoy being unable to provide easy access to appointments but we have to monitor our resources. If we are full we are full. We are not an acute access or walk in service We always direct people towards the right places and get them help as quickly as we can."

Lucy said: "We are very lucky that most of our staff have been here for years, and they work so hard. It breaks my heart when our staff suffer this abuse. Ironically, the abuse exacerbates the problem, increasing staff turnover and reducing the amount of trained staff that we have in the Practice. This makes the telephone queues longer and results in a lot more time spent dealing with complaints." 

The team also have a great deal of people booking appointments that are inappropriate for them mistakenly or in an attempt to be seen, which ultimately elongates the wait time of the patients waiting to attend the practice. 

They said: "We urge people to be careful when booking, ensuring that they have the correct appointment and that they are available when we call."

In this vein, before the pandemic, patients missed nearly 5000 appointments yearly, which equated to one doctor sitting in his or her office, Monday to Friday, 9 - 5, and not a single patient turning up for six months. Now that the team has stopped booking advanced appointments above 3 - 4 weeks, the number of no-shows has dropped dramatically. 

Phone call appointments allow the team to assess and correctly triage each patient, directing them to the correct department so that face-to-face appointments are not used needlessly. 

Lucy said: "If our patients need to see us, we will be there for them or signpost them correctly to an appropriate service. We have a duty of care." She continued: "A great deal of the work we do goes on behind the scenes, with sessions scheduled for us to visit local care homes – something we are contractually obliged to do – as well as specialist care sessions for those who need End of Life Care or have life limiting illnesses."

On top of this, Oakham Medical Practice also run the minor injuries unit located inside Rutland Memorial Hospital, so while their practice often seems quiet, the staff are busy balancing patients in both the practice and the hospital. 

Lucy concluded: "A key message to get out to patients is that they will get an appointment, if needed and we have capacity, and other pathways are not suitable. We have skilled members of our team that may not be a GP but are better placed to deal with the pts problem – we need pts to allow us to provide care that is not solely GP focused, whether that be a phone call, online, or a face-to-face appointment – but their co-operation and understanding will help us do this.

"We encourage those who do encounter issues to visit the website and click the contact us tab. This way we can deal with and act upon your complaints the way that we cannot if you voice your frustration on social media." 

To share your views on any local facilities or provisions with us, email [email protected].

We look forward to hearing from you.