Dear Patient
On Tuesday 9th May the joint NHS and DHSC Delivery Plan For Recovering Access to Primary Care Guidance was published and circulated to general practices, 6 days before the publicised start date for some of the actions. General practice has received no additional funding to support this plan and therefore there is no additional capacity to support the actions within it immediately.
The Maples will work towards meeting the aims of the plan but until our partner providers are able to implement the changes in their domains, we are unable to offer much of what this plan outlines in the near future.
The plan states that patients can expect a response from the practice on the same day they contact the practice. This does not mean they must be offered an appointment but includes signposting to other appropriate services.
Our Patient services team are fully trained in signposting patients to the service that meets their needs and are only trying to help patients access the most appropriate service or person. This may not be the practice but a pharmacy, or a self-referral to a service available on our website. They cannot offer appointments that are not available for them to book.
The practice cannot offer unlimited appointments, but every clinical team member is offering the maximum safe level of appointments they can. In addition to the bookable appointments they offer, they also have to process a huge amount of clinical paperwork, including ordering and reviewing test results, reviewing hospital letters, writing referrals and home visits.
If we were to accommodate every request for a routine appointment as per the new guidance, then the waiting time for an appointment would look at being 6-8 weeks which we feel is unacceptable.
Once the pharmacies are able to offer the services stated within this plan, we envisage this will improve access to GP appointments. Currently this is due to launch later in 2023. Also, once the stated changes to how hospitals liaise with general practice occur, hope this will improve further.
We are actively looking at ways of working to this plan and our integrated care board (ICB) and Local medical committee (LMC) are aware of our limitations in fulfilling it at the moment. We understand patients’ frustrations completely, but hope that once the changes start to happen, patients will experience an improvement in accessing GP services .
Thank you for your support and understanding whist we await other providers to bring their services online to be able to work towards the plan.
The Maples Health Centre
