Consultation on services at NHS centres
DOCTORS in Runcorn have asked the public for their opinions as they draw up plans to boost services across the town.
The ‘R Health’ project has involved all six general practitioners’ (GP) surgeries in the area sharing expertise and experiences and exploring ways to serve the public.
There are four main areas of focus for the plans and backers have said it is ‘vital’ that residents have their say over the next 18 months.
The first area is chronic disease management for conditions such as hypertension or diabetes and although GP practices have their own systems, R Health is aiming to ‘make sure that the care is as good as it can be for every patient in every practice’.
Next is care continuity and R Health GPs have said they want to make sure that when a patient needs to see the same clinical team, they can, and the project will also continue the work of schemes such GP Extra providing routine appointments in the evening at and at weekends.
The third area is ‘care navigation’, dealing with when a patient calls for help and advice.
Under R Health’s plans they will speak to a trained ‘care navigator’ to speed up how fast it takes patients to see the right ● type of medic by providing information and advice on the most appropriate available service, which might mean seeing a GP could mean a nurse, eye specialist or pharmacist, with the project aiming to cut out needless referral appointments.
R Health doctors are also looking for back office functions such as admin and finance to work more closely together to boost efficiency and free up staff to help out in other areas.
Dr Gary O’Hare, of Murdishaw Health Centre and R Health, said: “Our goal is quite simple.
“We’re looking to provide the best services possible for local people and improve their health and wellbeing.
“We also want to make our practices a great place for people to work so that we can keep the fantastic staff that we have and make sure we attract staff for the future.
“We want local people to get involved.
“We genuinely believe that by working together, sharing best practice and by listening to the ideas of patients we can do things differently and we can make things better.”
An R Health spokesman said: “GP practices are important to our community and many people cherish the relationship they have with their GP practice.
“We want to adapt to preserve this relationship when it is most important and at the same time, we need to provide a service to meet increasing demands.
“We are lucky in Runcorn that the R Health project is addressing these issues.”