Darnall Community Health Sheffield - UK GP Patient Survey Results 2010
Local / Sheffield Sep 30, 2010 - 08:15 AM GMTBy: N_Walayat
The Department of Health funded UK GP Patient Survey 2009-10 recently released results of more than 5.5 million detailed questionnaires sent out to NHS GP patients across England of which 2.17 million were returned.
For the city of Sheffield a total of 65,339 questionnaires were sent out to the patients of Sheffield's 92 GP surgeries of which 27,380 were returned from which detailed results were compiled as listed in the table at the end of this article for the overall level of satisfaction at the quality of health care received for all of Sheffield's GP surgeries.
Of Sheffield's 92 GP surgeries, 24 or 26% managed to achieve a rating of 95% or higher, which given the importance of health care should be the minimum goal for ALL GP surgeries. Next 43 (46%) of Sheffield GP surgeries managed to attain a patient satisfaction level of 90-94% of their patients, 19 (20%) between 85% and 89%, followed by 6 GP surgeries scraping the bottom of the barrel, notably Darnall Community Health coming in at an abysmally poor bottom rank of just 68%.
Sheffield's Bottom 5 GP Surgeries
| Level of Satisfaction Q1-Q4 | Level of Satisfaction Q1-Q3 | |
| HAROLD STREET MEDICAL CENTRE | 83% |
80% |
| STONECROFT MEDICAL CENTRE | 80% |
79% |
| HIGHGATE SURGERY | 76% |
75% |
| DARNALL HEALTH CENTRE (MEHROTRA) | 73% |
70% |
| DARNALL COMMUNITY HEALTH | 68% |
70% |
Sheffield's worst ranked GP surgeries on balance showed a slight improvement over the earlier Q1-Q3 results, all that is except Darnall Community Health that sunk to new depths where virtually 1/3rd of the surgeries patients are dissatisfied at the quality of health care received. The Sheffield Primary Care Trust had promised an improvement for Q4 which failed to materialise.
Sheffield's Top 5 GP Surgeries
| Level of Satisfaction Q1-Q4 | Level of Satisfaction Q1-Q3 | |
| MILL ROAD SURGERY | 99% |
99% |
| STANNINGTON MEDICAL CENTRE | 98% |
98% |
| RUSTLINGS ROAD MEDICAL CENTRE | 98% |
98% |
| THE HEALTH CARE SURGERY | 98% |
98% |
| JAUNTY SPRINGS HEALTH CENTRE | 97% |
98% |
The results show that Sheffield's best performing Surgeries continue to cluster in the affluent areas of the city, which is reflective of the 'post code lottery' where those that reside in the affluent wards due to more likely being professionals are able to demand a better quality of NHS GP services than those that tend to reside in the deprived wards who tend to suffer in silence as to what passes for health care provision which plays a significant part in contributing to a more than 14 YEAR GAP IN LIFE EXPECTANCY between peoples living just a few miles distance from one another, which has been commented upon in the past by the Sheffield MP and Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg :
"It is an outrage that social mobility has slowed, not increased, under the Blair-Brown years. It is an outrage that in Sheffield, where I’m an MP, life expectancy in the poorest wards is a full 14 years below the life expectancy of those living in the wealthiest wards. Your life chances are now set by the circumstances of your birth as never before."
Darnall Community Health Patient Experience
Whilst on an overall basis Darnall Community Health just satisfies 68% of its patients (ranking 92nd of 92), other measures of GP practice performance paint just as grim a picture as the following table compiled from the UK GP Patient survey illustrates -
| % | |
| Helpfulness of receptionist - Helpful total % | 75% |
| Ease of getting through on the phone - % Easy | 21% |
| Able to see a doctor fairly quickly | 41% |
| Doctor or nurse ever tell you that you had a 'care plan'? - % Yes | 14% |
| Ease of contacting the out-of-hours GP service by telephone - % Yes | 62% |
| Recommending GP surgery to someone who has moved to the local area - % Yes | 47% |
| Satisfaction with opening hours - Satisfied % | 62% |
| Last seen a doctor - % More than 6 months ago | 28% |
The full results can be accessed at the UK GP Patient Survey site - http://results.gp-patient.co.uk/report/main.aspx
On nearly every measure listed above, DCH either came bottom or near the bottom of all 92 Sheffield GP surgeries. How can patients receive treatment if only 21% are able to get through to the surgery on the phone to make appointments ? Which makes a mockery of the data that the GP surgery produces itself and sends off to the PCT, as it EXCLUDES ALL THOSE WHO HAVE GIVEN UP trying to be seen by a GP let alone towards a satisfactory outcome.
The experience of individual patients can invariably be lost in the statistics, in which regard here is an example of real patient experience of Darnall Community Health that goes a long way towards explaining why nearly 1/3rd of the surgeries patients are dissatisfied.
The GP informs the patient that they will arrange for a blood test to enable diagnoses of the patients condition.
The patient eagerly awaits the appointment for a blood test to materialise so as treatment can begin. Unfortunately a few days turns into a few weeks, and then a few weeks into a few months until the patient gives up and PAYS FOR A PRIVATE BLOOD TEST that is sent to the GP surgery. The surgeries response ? DEFEANING SILENCE.
If patients such as above are forced to do the surgeries job and PAY AGAIN for what they have already paid for through their taxes then why do GP surgeries such as Darnall Community Health continue to exist ? It is because there is NO COMPETION between GP surgeries for patients and further more between hospitals, for if there were competition between health service providers for patients then they would be forced to deliver a REAL health service. Therefore the only solution is for the NHS to be privatised so that all health service providers are forced to COMPETE for patients, which means those GP surgeries that fail to satisfy their patients will go out of the business as they lose their patients to more efficient health care providers that actually are able to satisfy their patients.
New Darnall Healthcare Centre Solution?
The Sheffield PCT's solution to the chronic under performance of Darnall Community Health is to do what the NHS does best which is to throw tax payer money at the problem. The Sheffield PCT had publicised over a year ago that a new £5.5 million medical centre would be built in Darnall by now, but as is the case with the efficiency of NHS on actual delivery, a year on the below photo illustrates the state of the site of the New Darnall Medical Centre.
PCT's Scrapped and GP Consortia's
Off course the new Coalition Government was apparently so impressed by the performance of the NHS Primary Care Trusts (PCT's) that as part of its cost cutting austerity programme it intends to scrap ALL PCT's in favour of GP Consortia's directly managing patient treatment commissioning (the process could take 2-3 years to implement). This means Sheffield NHS PCT who's achievements include employing 400 bureaucrats in a new multi-million pound headquarters is destined to disappear from Sheffield's health landscape.
However whilst the mainstream media has been focused on the news of scrapping of all NHS PCT's, the flip side of the coin lies in the consolidation of GP practices into GP consortiums in an attempt to introduce real competition between surgeries for patients which means that the less performing GP surgeries in cities such as Sheffield could (should) disappear as they will be unable to compete for patients in a more market orientated value for money environment due to their inability to provide health services to the satisfaction of a large % of their patients.
The anticipated changes are set against the current system which contrary to what the population believes GP's are Independant PRIVATE contractors to the NHS WITHOUT COMPETITION. GP's are basically a law onto themselves, and in the vast majority of cases totally unaccountable where complaining against GP's amounts to a total waste of time which is why the NHS is riddled with inept GP's as there is no real mechanism to get rid of those that are not up to the job, an issue which market forces will attempt to address.
Therefore under a more competitive GP health servicing market as consortia compete against one another for patients, those surgeries that rank at the bottom that prove unable in satisfying and thus retaining patients, should find themselves forced to merge and to restructure with new staff employed so as to ensure that the consortia's are better able to compete against one another for patients. This also means for the reforms to work then there must be at least 2 competing consortia in cities such as Sheffield, and preferably more other wise the reforms will FAIL and result in even worse patient health care experience as there will be NO incentive for GP's to treat patients but every incentive to deliver as much as possible of the £100 billion NHS budget into the back pockets of GP's which is probably what GP's expect to happen as occurred following the 2003 Labour GP contracts as illustrated by the below GP Pay graph that contributed to the 2009 MP expenses scandal as GP pay took off into the stratosphere whilst MP's watched on in envy therefore triggering the expenses abuse.
Results For All 92 Sheffield GP Surgeries Ranked in Order of Patient Overall Satisfaction of Care Received
Data Source - http://results.gp-patient.co.uk/report/main.aspx
Source:http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article23111.html
By Nadeem Walayat
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