DR NICK O’DONOVAN
M.B.Ch.B., D.R.C.O.G.
DR BELLA CAIGER
THE DEVONSHIRE PRACTICE
262 DEVONSHIRE AVENUE
SOUTHSEA, HANTS. PO4 9EH
M.B.B.S., D.R.C.O.G., M.R.C.G.P.
DR CATHERINE CAUSER
M.B.B.S., D.R.C.O.G, M.R.C.G.P.,D.F.F.P
Telephone (023) 9273 1358
Fax (023) 9275 0091
THE DEVONSHIRE PRACTICE PATIENT PARTICIPATION GROUP
REPORT 2013/2014
Dear Patients
Welcome to our third annual report from the Practice Patient Participation Group (PPG)
This is our third year of engagement with our PPG which has seen us work collectively to improve and enhance
the service the Practice delivers to all of our patients.
The last twelve months has seen us successfully implement an action from last years plan. This saw us ‘tweak’
our appointment system and we opened up a selection of appointments that became available to book one day in
advance.
This has proved to be very popular with our patients and has been a direct result of our PPG and their input.
The Devonshire Practice is very committed to maintaining and developing the relationship with our PPG and we
were keen to start a new journey with the PPG in April 2013
Primary Care is constantly changing and managing the changes can prove to be challenging but working in
partnership with our PPG we hope the journey will prove to be successful and productive
We looked at the our Practice population and wanted to ensure that our PPG was a good representation of our
Practice population
The Devonshire Practice has approximately 5700 patients that are broken down in to 51% male patients and
49% female patients.
We also looked at our ethnicity statistics which show that 90% of our patients are within the ‘White British
Group’ with the remaining being made up of White Irish, White & black Caribbean, white and black African,
white Asian, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese, unfortunately we do not have every patients ethnicity
recorded for various different reasons so this will remain as ‘work in progress and we continue to actively
document this information, however we do have many patients who do not wish us to inform us of their
ethnicity so our figures can never be completely accurate.
Practice population profile
PRG profile
Age
% Under 16
15.75%
% Under 16
4%
% 17 - 24
10.26%
% 17 - 24
9%
% 25 - 34
14.21%
% 25 - 34
29%
% 35 - 44
14.54%
% 35 - 44
19%
% 45 - 54
15.24%
% 45 - 54
8%
% 55 - 64
11.55%
% 55 - 64
16%
% 65 - 74
9.93%
% 65 - 74
8%
% 75 - 85
6.50%
% 75 - 85
4%
% Over 85
2.03%
% Over 85
3%
Ethnicity
White
White
% British Group
90%
% British Group
88%
% Irish
0.50%
% Irish
0%
Mixed
Mixed
% White & Black Caribbean
0.05%
% White & Black Caribbean
0.00%
% White & Black African
0.05%
% White & Black African
0.01%
% White & Asian
1.00%
% White & Asian
0.02%
Asian or Asian British
Asian or Asian British
% Indian
2%
% Pakistani
0.50%
% Nepalese
% Bangladeshi
0.50%
Black or Black British
% Indian
0.01%
% Pakistani
0.03%
% Nepalese
0%
% Bangladeshi
0.01%
Black or Black British
% Caribbean
0.50%
% Caribbean
% African
3%
% African
Chinese or other ethnic group
% Chinese
Chinese or other ethnic group
1%
% Any Other
% Chinese
0.01%
% Any Other
2%
Gender
% Male
0.51%
% Male
52%
% Female
0.49%
% Female
48%
With the statistics in mind we continued to actively work towards encouraging a diverse population of our
patients to join our PPG
We start by asking all patients visiting the Practice if they would like to register an interest in joining our group,
we advertised on our web site and displayed posters
The Doctors also actively discuss with various patients the benefits of being a member of our PPG and the
differences that are made as a result of our PPG.
The current break down of our PPG is as follows
Our final break down of our group was made up as follows
See details for the profile of our 130 members
Our group was split of 52% Male & 48% female
< 16 = 7 patients
17-24 = 11 patients
25- 34 = 28 patients
35- 44 = 22 patients
45- 54 = 14 patients
55-64 = 25 patients
65-74 = 17 patients
75- 84 = 7 patients
84+ = 6 patients
ETHNICITY
White British
Indian
Pakistani
White & Black Asian
Bangladeshi
Black Caribbean
Chinese
Other
NUMBER OF PATIENTS
121
2
5
2
2
1
1
3
Our PPG figures reflect a fair comparison to our Practice Population
88% represent the White British Group and the remaining 12% are made up of the above ethnicities
We set an open invitation for the 14th August 2013 for patients to come and find out about the Practice and our
PPG and we advertised the event on the Practice web site and individual invitations were attached to all repeat
prescription counterfoils and we displayed posters in our waiting area.
We also posted invites to some of our patients who were not frequent attendees at the Practice; we also e-mailed
invitations to all our members of the PPG who had an e-mail address documented.
At the meeting the group were asked to consider what topics they would like the Practice to be looking at with
regard to publishing a more in depth survey
We also e-mailed the members of our PPG group asking for their input on choices of topics
The suggestions put forward were as follows





Clinical Care
Getting an appointment
Opening Times
Getting through on the phone
Waiting Times
As a result of this we produced a small survey asking patients to vote on the topic they felt was the most
important to them
We run this survey through out September 2013
The results were as follows

Clinical Care = 29%

Getting an appointment = 92%

Opening Times = 7%

Getting through on the phone = 43%

Waiting Times =13%
Once we had the results of the survey we had a meeting with a selection of volunteers from our PPG on 1st
October 2013
At this meeting the group discussed and agreed questions to base our new survey on
The suggested questions were then e-mailed and given to other members of the PPG for approval and /or the
opportunity to make any amendments
Once the survey questions had been agreed we started the process of disseminating the survey questionnaires to
our Practice population and PPG members
We did this by a range of methods, e-mail, and post and to every patient who visited the Practice, we wanted to
reach out to as many patients as we possibly could
We issued 300 surveys but to our disappointment we had a very poor response, despite our best efforts we only
received 75 surveys back
The survey was run between October 2013 and January 2014
PATIENT SURVEY RESULTS 2013
Q1: How easy was it to get an appointment for the time you wanted?
Not very easy 16%
Fairly easy 50%
Very easy 33%
Q2: Were you able to see the GP you wanted to see?
No 4%
Did not want specific GP 37%
Yes 58%
Q3: How easy was it to get an appointment with the GP you wanted to see?
Not very easy 12%
Fairly easy 41%
Very easy 33%
No response 14%
Q4: How important is it to you that you see a specific GP when coming to this practice?
Prefer not to say 1%
Not at all important 22%
Fairly important 53%
Very important 22%
Q5: If you have had an appointment with a GP or Nurse within the last 6 months, were you
able to get a 'non urgent' appointment within 2 weeks?
Yes 50%
No 10%
Not Applicable 33%
No response 7%
Q6: If you needed to see a GP urgently within the last 6 months were you able to get an
appointment on the same day?
Yes 49%
No 10%
Not Applicable 40%
Q7: Are you aware you can have a telephone consultation instead of a face to face
appointment if you prefer?
Yes 74%
No 24%
No response 2%
Q8: We often have 'missed' appointments by patients, how easy do you find it to contact the
surgery to cancel an appointment?
Not very easy 8%
Fairly easy 41%
Very easy 49%
No response 2%
Q9: Would you like the opportunity to be able to book an appointment ' on line'
Yes 66%
No 33%
Q10: How easy do you find it to book an appointment with the Practice Nurse?
Not very easy 2%
Fairly easy 53%
Very easy 40%
No response 5%
Q11: In general, how satisfied are you with the care you receive from the Surgery?
Not satisfied 1%
Very satisfied 76%
Fairly satisfied 20%
No response 3%
Q12: Would you be happy to recommend the Practice to Family and Friends?
Yes 93%
No 0%
Possibly 6%
Q13: Have you needed to use the 111 Service
Yes 22%
No 77%
Q14: If yes, were you satisfied with the service?
Yes 20%
No: 2%
No response 78%
To help us analyse your answers please tell us a few things about yourself:
Are you male or female?
Male 40%
Female 58%
No response 2%
What age are you?
Under 16 1%
17 - 24 8%
25 - 34 14%
35 - 44 13%
45 - 54 20%
55 - 64 6%
65 - 74 22%
75 - 84 5%
Over 84 6%
No response 5%
What is the ethnic background with which you most identify?
White British 76%
White Irish 1%
Mixed White & Black Caribbean 0%
Mixed White & Black African 1%
Mixed White & Black Asian 4%
Indian 4%
Pakistani 1%
Bangladeshi 0%
Black Caribbean 0%
Black African 0%
Chinese 2%
Other 6%
No response 5%
How would you describe how often you come to the practice?
Regularly 29%
Occasionally 48%
Very Rarely 18%
No response 5%
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
Once we had collated the results from the survey we invited all our patients to a meeting held on the 26th
February 2014 at the Practice.
We sent invites to all of our PPG with e-mail addresses and stapled invites to all our repeat prescription
counterfoils, we displayed a poster in the waiting room and an open invitation was displayed on our website in
the hope we would attract as many of our Practice population as possible.
We issued in the region of 200 invitations
The meeting started with a summary of the minutes from our meeting on the 14th August 2013 and for new
members of the PPG we explained the time line of events and how the topics for our initial survey was agreed
and the how our main patient survey was agreed and produced
The results were discussed ideas were shared and debated and after a lively animated discussion the group felt
that the Practice should concentrate on reducing the amount of ‘missed’ appointments.
The Practice statistics show that approximately 10% of our appointments are ‘missed’ by patients not turning up
for them, the PPG felt that it was important to address this problem.
An action plan was discussed and agreed
Minutes of the Meeting were produced and distributed (28.02.14) we asked for any comments to be returned
within one week
No comments or amendments were requested so the action plan agreed at the meeting remained as discussed
and agreed
ACTION PLAN 2014

The Practice will display a poster on the Practice Notice Boards with the weekly numbers of missed
appointments designed by a member of our Patient Group

The Practice will start to write to patients who miss 3 appointments explaining the need for them to
attend or to cancel the appointment in good time so another patient can make use of the appointment

To review the Practice Notice boards and to consider reducing the amount of information displayed as it
was felt the information was easily lost when they was an abundance of information

Consider relocating the Notice Boards to locations where patients will be better placed to be able read
the information.
Review of the 2012 Action Plan
The last twelve months has seen us successfully implement our action plan from last year

We started by opening up a selection of appointments one day in advance which due to the positive feed
back we have been able to increase the number of these appointments

We also produced and displayed posters in the waiting room which explained that a delay in being seen
may be due to the Doctor conducting a telephone appointment
This too has proved to be popular with the patients and we have received positive remarks regarding the
poster

We did investigate text messaging software that could remind patients of their booked appointments,
however we did have a limited choice of software that was compatible with our Practice software and
we also had concerns with regard to the security of the product so decided to postpone this course of
action until such time we either change our clinical software provider or a more compatible product is
available
PRACTICE OPENING TIMES
We open the surgery door between 8:30am and 6pm Monday to Friday
Dr O’Donovan, Dr Caiger & Dr Caiger offer pre-booked late evening appointments on Mondays and
Tuesdays between 6.30 pm & 8pm
We do not close during these times (unless we are closed for the Target Training Sessions held on a
Wednesday afternoon once a month except during August & December)
Please ask at Reception if you have any queries or take one of our Practice Leaflets displayed in
Reception
Alternatively you can find details of our opening times and services on our NHS Choices website or
our own Practice website www.thedevonshirepractice.co.uk
SERVICES AVAILABLE DURING PRACTICE OPENING TIMES
CORE SERVICES General management of medical conditions, Health promotion advice, appropriate
emergency care, appropriate referral for other services, and urgently required care for temporary
residents.
ADDITONAL SERVICES Cervical screening, Contraceptive services, Vaccinations and
Immunisations, Child health surveillance, Maternity services, Minor surgery procedures.
ALSO Registered patients aged 16-75 who have not been seen for 3 years may request a consultation.
Registered patients aged over 75 years who have not been seen in the previous 12 months may request
a consultation
OUT OF HOURS SERVICES a recorded telephone message provides information when the surgery
is closed. Portsmouth City CCG provides our out of hour’s services, weekdays between 6.30pm and
8:00am, and all day and all night at weekends and Bank Holidays. If you require medical treatment out
of hours, please phone the emergency telephone number on 1-1-1, you will be directed to the most
appropriate service
Thank you to all of our patients for your continued help and support to the surgery