Agenda item

GP Services in the City

Report of City and Hackney CCG

Minutes:

The Committee received a report of the City and Hackney Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and welcomed Sue Neville and Shahannu Uddin, representatives from the Neaman Practice and Richard Bull from City and Hackney CCG. The Committee was given an update on the Neaman Practice and its current performance. The practice currently had around 9400 registered patients, and provided a variety of services alongside GP, nurse and pharmacy appointments such as chiropody, physiotherapy and smoking cessation, and also offered a duty doctor scheme, which had been successful.

 

Practice staff were aware of difficulties with the phone system and were working hard to find a system which maximised the capacity of the reception staff to take bookings for appointments both over the phone and face-to-face. The practice had been selected for City and Hackney’s ‘South Hub’ and would be open from 8am until 8pm on Saturdays from April 2018. The practice was also aiming to increase its capacity and hold an extra three hours of appointments during the week. There were plans to increase capacity for booking online appointments to up to 6 weeks in advance.

 

The Committee noted the practice’s performance against the CCG’s Primary Care Quality Dashboard. Whilst there were some areas of underperformance the practice’s overall score was higher than the City and Hackney average and above the London and National benchmarks. The Committee noted that the practice was within BMA guidelines for weekly appointments per 1000 patients and number of registered patients per doctor. The Committee noted that the practice’s administrative obligations and accountability to the local GP Confederation often had to take a high priority as the practice needed to meet certain targets in order to receive funding.

 

The Chairman reminded the Committee that it was important to keep context of the patients being served in mind when considering the performance data of the practice, as it had an unusual catchment area with some of the lowest areas of deprivation in the country, thus skewing the data. The Committee was informed that the practice had met its funding-related targets and was working hard to improve any areas of underperformance. Staffing was a significant issue, but the practice was working hard to recruit both medical and non-medical staff in order to meet demand and operate at full capacity.

 

The Chairman asked the Neaman Practice representatives if the Babylon GP service had impacted on the practice. Whilst it was not currently a big issue for the Neaman Practice specifically, it may escalate in the future, as it could attract younger patients who may deregister from GP Practices, which would have a knock-on effect on the funding received by the practice as well as increasing relative workload. The Committee was informed that the Babylon service was creating a problem for GP practices in other areas. The Chairman suggested that the Committee could look at the Babylon service at a future meeting, as it was theoretically a positive thing but was seen to be having negative effects, and could have further implications with regards to cancer screening if younger patients were not registered with GPs.

 

The Committee noted the draft scoping paper for an options appraisal for the Neaman Practice. A small working group was to be convened to consider options to improve access to the practice, and work out the scope for expansion, the practice’s relationship with neighbouring practices and the effect of expansion or relocation on the practice’s catchment area. The Committee noted that the premises costs for the Neaman Practice’s current location were far higher than the CCG average, but was assured that if the Practice was to be relocated it would remain within the City of London.

 

The Committee thanked Sue Neville, Shahannu Uddin and Richard Bull for attending and for their contributions to the meeting.

 

RESOLVED – That the report and briefing papers be noted.

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