Charlbury Medical Centre

Mon 9 Sep, 13:16

A statement from the Patient Participation Group Committee

Charlbury is fortunate to have a local GP Practice thanks to the willingness of the Practice Partners to keep the facility running in challenging times.

It is recognised that there are likely to be disadvantages as well as advantages of being served by a small GP Practice.    

A key advantage, of which the patient group committee (PPG) is well-aware from meetings with the Practice team is a commitment and ability to provide targeted care backed by local knowledge of individual patient circumstances which is especially important in supporting vulnerable patients.

Another key advantage is, of course, local access to medical services within the town.

However, there are also likely to be disadvantages.

Services provided by a small team of GPs, nurses and other staff, including receptionists, will be more susceptible to potential disruption when staff take a holiday break, are off sick, go on maternity leave or resign.  It can be difficult for a small Practice to quickly recruit or otherwise organise cover, especially at short notice.

Small practices do not benefit from the economies of scale available for larger ones and are not able to offer a range of ancillary medical and other services on site. They are limited by building size and room availability as well as funding. They are also not able to fund more than a small core team of administrative staff, such as practice managers, secretaries and IT specialists, which may limit their capacity to be as quickly responsive to general requests and queries as they would wish.

A recent example of this was the out of date message about appointment availability on the CMC phone which caused concern to a number of patients. When the PPG brought this to the attention of the Practice the problem was quickly resolved. The PPG welcomes receiving comments from patients and the ongoing dialogue it has with the CMC practice team.

In recent months the Practice team has been reviewing its methods of operation, including its staffing and the way it organises appointments.   This has included the appointment of a Paramedic Practitioner as part of the medical service team, which has refined and speeded up the assessing of service requests and widened the team available to see patients and prescribe. The team of receptionists has also been increased and is supported by training.

The Practice team aim to provide the best possible service for their patients. They do their best to achieve the highest standards, despite the challenges identified above and the challenges for all GP practices that are constantly talked about nationally.    The PPG committee, who speak to the Practice on behalf of patients and with the interests of patients in mind, can confirm this but are also aware of the challenges the team face, which can sometimes have an impact on day to day services.