Manager Practice


PRACTICE MANAGER GEORGINA BALL OF MILLBROOK SURGERY AND (BELOW) PRACTICE STAFF WITH DR STEVE EDGAR


voluntary organisations,” says PM Georgina. “The huddles are completely health-coach- led. I don’t initiate the agenda at all. They have a database of patients on their radar, some who may be having interactions with the complex care team or have recently been in hospital. We talk about their care needs. We talk about shared learning. We talk about successful cases or perhaps things we could do better the next time.” Steve adds: “It really fosters a team ethos.


It’s not just the GP’s job to do the work; it’s the whole team, led by the health coaches who reach into the hospitals. Some of our patients may be in hospital but they’re still our patients. We’re involved in their ongoing care.” Millbrook Surgery has three health coaches


working with the GPs and practice staff, serving a growing list currently of around 5,500 patients. Another innovation at Millbrook aimed at fostering a team ethos is an open-plan office design where admin and clinical staff, health coaches and GPs all work next to each other, “hot desking” consulting rooms to see patients. “Rather than the GPs being behind closed doors and the admin team hovering about trying to get an answer, we all work collaboratively together,” says Georgina. The practice also operates a unique


appointment system called GP Access. They WWW.MDDUS.COM “


THE TEAM HUDDLES ARE COMPLETELY HEALTH-COACH-LED. I DON’T INITIATE THE AGENDA AT ALL


”


offer no pre-bookable GP appointments which puts the doctor completely in control of their day. Says Georgina: “patients can phone in and get an appointment and speak to a doctor on the day. This means our DNA rate is practically non-existent.”


SCALING UP The changes implemented by Millbrook and the other practices in the Symphony Programme have yielded measureable improvements. In the last year, hospital overnight admissions in the region fell by 7.5 per cent, emergency bed days by 15 per cent and non-elective admissions from nursing homes by 50 per cent. In May of this year the Symphony


Programme was named ‘Primary Care Team of the Year’ at the BMJ Awards. The judges were impressed by the positive impact shown on developing patients’ skills, knowledge and confidence in self-management, and the programme team were praised for their focus on relationships, commitment to patient partnerships and strong measurable outcomes. Now the task of the vanguard is to scale up the learning and the experience, says Steve. “To take some of the positive things we’ve managed to create and do that at a bigger scale so that it has a greater impact across the Somerset healthcare environment. “When you talk about investment in primary care and bottom-up change it takes time to change and one of the lessons we’ve learned is to allow that to happen.”


Jim Killgore is managing editor of MDDUS Practice Manager


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