PRACTICE PROFILE SEATON PARK MEDICAL GROUP
How do you manage increasing patient demand in an era of funding cuts? Jim Killgore finds out how one practice in Northern England is coping with the challenge
H
ARD times are nothing new in the town of Ashington, located 15 miles up the Northumberland coast from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. At one time it was said to be the
world’s largest coal-mining village, employing thousands of men in local collieries. But the decline of the industry in the 1980s and 1990s brought high unemployment and social deprivation – a legacy the town still suffers with today. Sweeping government budget cuts in this age of austerity
bite hard in such areas and healthcare provision is no excep- tion. One local provider struggling with these challenges is the Seaton Park Medical Group. On a chilly April afternoon I travel the short distance by taxi from Morpeth Station on the main east coast rail line to meet Pat Stevenson – managing partner at Seaton Park. With over 19,000 patients and 10 GP partners, three salaried GPs and a total staff of about 50, Seaton Park is the largest medical practice in Northumberland. In three branch surgeries in both Ashington and nearby Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, the practice deals with high levels of morbidity among a mainly white, low- income population. “I know from the GPs that it’s not unusual for someone to
come to the surgery with as many as six genuine health issues to sort out in a 10-minute consultation,” says Pat. “And our statistics show that every quarter the demand is getting higher – the same number of patients but higher demand.” Like many practices across the UK, Seaton Park is seeing no
increased funding to cover this rising demand in services. “Our PMS contract was forcibly renegotiated in 2007,” says
Pat. “Nearly £2 million was taken out of the area, out of primary care. We suffered the loss of an equivalent of £125,000 per year. That was a big blow. And we’ve seen a static or falling income for the last four or five years. How do you cope with that?”
HAVING VISION For Pat the answer is mainly through hard work and a clear vision of what the practice is trying to achieve. She comes from a business background, having worked for many years with a software company supplying IT systems to hospitals across the UK. In addition, before joining Seaton Park in 1997, she held a senior management role at an NHS Trust. Five years after taking on the job of practice manager she
was invited to become a partner. “It was quite a radical move,” says Pat. “Not that it’s made much difference really. I’ve always worked with the approach that there’s a job rather than a clock.” Notionally, Pat works four days a week which means “only about 60 or 70 hours”. Most important to her is the personal stake or “ownership” being a partner offers and the challenge of setting the future course for the practice – providing vision. “Having a vision is as important as oxygen is to breathing,”
she says. “Knowing where you want to be and what you want to achieve is the thing that stops you being mediocre or worse, and determines how likely you are to survive in a changing and threatening world. Certainly I think general practice in its current model is under attack politically in the UK.” Pat believes that to make it in the current climate, a gen-
eral practice must be run like any other commercial venture. It requires a broad outlook, looking months, years ahead, and also an ability to learn from other industries. But she admits that the model doesn’t quite stack up from a business point of view. “If you are a Tesco – greater footfall and greater sales mean
more profit,” she says. “But for us the more appointments we of- fer, the more it costs us. It turns the business model completely on its head. Contacts cost.” So how does a large practice like Seaton Park deal with rising demand and diminishing resources? One possible option is to strive for greater efficiency. Compared to most hospitals, says Pat, the amount of waste in Seaton Park is miniscule. “I have been working on reducing it for the last 15 years and that makes a difference but it can only go so far.”
CHANNELLING DEMAND In recent years Pat has embarked on a different tack and become a fervent believer in the concept of demand management. Looking at it in the context of general practice, Stephen Gillam
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SUMMER 2012 ISSUE 6
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