We recently ran a survery approved by the Patient Participation Group to identify areas of our services that patients felt most strongly required discussion and improvement.
The two most important areas were appointment availability and access to the surgery.
As a result of the survey we now offer longer surgeries on some evenings, this not only allows us to provide a better service for patients who work within normal surgery hours and find it difficult to get an appointment but also that we now have more appointments available.
We also realised that our online services needed to be better advertised and we now provide reminders in our newsletter as well as posters in the surgery that patients can book appointments and order repeat medication online.
Telephone access to the surgery is a high priority for both patients and Alpine House and this will remain an ongoing source of discussion.