case study It also helped that Charnwood’s patient
participation group was on board from day one, feeding back to patients on the plans. From there, locals were kept informed of the move through posters and letters, as well as comment books and online feedback forms. “I don’t think we had a negative comment, actually,” says Hanlon. Unsurprisingly, then, the practice managed to keep all its patients in the move – understandable considering the previous location was so close, but not always easy. In fact, the list has been growing ever since the move. “We ask all our new patients why they register here and a huge percentage of them say that it’s because they live close, so we didn’t want to move miles away,” he adds. Now all the group’s administration and management staff are based at the Rosebery centre, which is also open later in the evenings to accommodate patients from the other sites who need urgent care. Other than that, the clinical and telephone systems are all linked and the doctors work across all three locations. Hanlon admits there are ineffi ciencies in having branch sites, in terms of needing more staff, but feels they’re worth it to offer a service closer to patients.
A WINNING TEAM Thanks to its work on the new building, in May, Charnwood Community Medical Group won Caradoc Medical Services buying consortium and Henry Schein Medical UK’s inaugural Practice of the Year Award. During the ceremony, Peter Masters, business manager of Caradoc (see p24), said that “in diffi cult economic times, GP practices need to look at doing things differently” and opening Rosebery Medical Centre to offer more services to the Loughborough community was an example of this. As part of the award, the practice received £10,000’s worth of medical equipment and supplies – a boost that’s helped Hanlon and his staff plan for an even better future. A big push for the practice is proactive
care, and identifying gaps in support for its patients with long-term conditions. The practice runs health and wellbeing events for its patients and is looking to run even more – while avoiding stepping on any proverbial toes. “We don’t want to upset the local community centre,” says Hanlon. “They’ve got lots of events going on there, so whatever we put on, we want it to be complementary to that.” Saying that, Charnwood’s not opposed to running things like healthy
30 october 2013
eating and exercise classes out of the main reception hall. “We’re fairly sure that GP surgeries will have more of a role in terms of health and wellbeing, so we’re getting ready for that,” says Hanlon. He sees the GPs offering more general lifestyle support, and as such, the practice has reached out to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau to run pop up sessions in the practice once a week. Hanlon’s aware of how lucky his
practice is to have a great new location and promising plans for the future and isn’t keen to waste any prospect. “It’s probably taken us a year to settle in here – to get our core services right,” says Hanlon. “The next push is we’ve got a fantastic opportunity to get other things going.” He’s not keen to lose any time, either. “We as a practice spent a lot of time saying ‘When we move, we’ll be able to…’,” he concludes. “Now there’s no excuse – you’ve got to just get on with it.”
fast facts
Practice Charnwood Community Medical Group – including Outwoods Medical Centre, Rosebery Medical Centre and Forest Edge Medical Centre CCG West Leicestershire Clinical Commissioning Group Patients 10,900 (7,000 at Rosebery, 2,400 at Outwoods, and 1,500 at Forest Edge) Partners Nine Number of clinical staff 15 Number of admin staff 22 Group business partner Paul Hanlon Time in role Four years Background Hanlon has a BA in business and management and an MA in management. His father is a partner, so he’s been involved with the family- run practice since picking litter as a fi ve-year-old
people
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