Senior practitioners in the NHS have visited Reading as a ’10 Year Plan’ is being devised to improve health outcomes for patients.
A consultation is currently in progress called ‘Change NHS’ which sets health priorities over the next decade.
The biggest priorities are the ‘three shifts’ which are moving care from hospitals to communities, making better use of technology, and focusing on prevention, not just treatment.
The consultation has involved professionals touring England to learn best practice throughout the NHS.
The most recent event took place in Reading on Tuesday, February 25, with practitioners conducting a learning visit to Brookside Surgery in Brookside Close, Lower Earley.
The surgery, which is rated ‘Good’ by the Care Quality Commission, has introduced a streamlined digital service to help triage the patients staff look after.
Dr Amit Sharma, managing GP partner explained how this approach has proven successful.
He said: “We’ve been able to showcase some of the digital work we’ve been doing and but not just digital ways of people accessing appointments, how people access appointments generally so they can walk in or have a telephone call. As well as do the online option and all of it goes onto one dashboard that streamlines the information and is able to support those who are making decisions about the right appointments going to the right patients with the right clinicians at the right time.
“So that’s one of the key things we’ve been able to do and using some clever software that really helps us do that.”
Grant, who has lived in the area for five years, and is a patient at the surgery, stated that getting an appointment is a swift process.
He said: “Counter what a lot of the media tries to portray, I’ve experienced an improvement in waiting times to get seen.
“I can usually get an appointment on the day I fill out an online form that basically states what my ailment or problem is.
“Then that’s triaged to the practice, and then I get an appointment that’s appropriate for what it is that I’m calling up about.”
Grant added that he typically waits just five minutes to be seen by staff once his appointment is scheduled.
The visit took place in the context of news that a hoped-for newly built hospital in either Earley or Shinfield will not get built until 2035-39.
Dr Sharma said: “I think it is disappointing for the Royal Berks.
“It’s great that we will have a new-built hospital at some point, but the delay means there is an opportunity around community working and around how the work that currently happens within the Royal Berks, how some of that may be able to come out into the community and that won’t be just general practice.”
GPs are supported by wellbeing staff. The team leader said that her focus will be getting out into the community to provide healthcare outside of a hospital setting, reducing the burden on the Royal Berks.
Stressing the importance of the shifts, Bola Owolabi, a GP from Derbyshire and the Director of the National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme at NHS England said: “As a GP myself. I can absolutely see the imperative of those shifts.
“Most of our patients experience their lives out in the community and from what I’ve seen at Brookside GP Surgery, they are really taking the 10 year health plan from a plan into something that actually happens in practice.
“That’s why we [NHS England] are here, to hear authentically the voices of those who work at the frontline of the NHS to shape the 10 year health plan.”
As well as the surgery visit, the day involved discussions between health practitioners at the Green Park conference centre.
