High Lane GP Medical Centre voted Best in Country
Stockport’s High Lane Medical Centre has been voted the best GP practice in the country in a national survey.
The practice, which has 6,500 patients aged from birth to 102, has come top in the annual GP Patient Survey run on behalf of NHS England. A nationwide postal survey was sent to 2.5 million adult patients registered with a GP practice inviting them to share their experiences.
It included questions on making an appointment through to their experience of their last appointment.
High Lane Medical Centre, which is on Buxton Road, scored 100% in the survey responses from people who thought the receptionists were helpful and that GPs treated patients with care and concern, listening to them.
It consistently beat the national English average with 99% of the respondents saying their overall experience at the medical centre is good.
Dr Bob Mathewson, Lead GP, said:
“We were all flabbergasted by the result. We’ve got a great team of experienced doctors, with lovely staff and patients, so we’re ideally positioned to do well.
“We’ve always had a good rapport with patients and do our best for them. We’re on the patient’s side, we work with them and being able to say yes to them, and not having to say no all the time, is good for the staff and makes them feel good.”
The practice has improved on its previous highest ranking of 26th in country by finding practical solutions to help remove barriers for patients trying to access services.
Paula Davies, Practice Manager, said:
“If you find a problem that is a barrier like a phone system, you look at it from a patient’s perspective and see what you can change to make things better. In our case, we employed more receptionists who, through the use of a monitoring system, know how many callers are in the system and can prioritise their work accordingly. We offer a range of different ways to communicate and are flexible enough to adopt and bring in new ones such video consultations. We try to move with the times.”
Anita Rolfe, Director of Health, Quality and Improvement/Deputy Place Lead, One Stockport Health and Care Partnership, made a visit to meet with the team to find out how their successful approach could be used across practices.
Anita said:
“It is a tremendous achievement and shows just how highly regarded our GP practices are in Stockport and how hard they work. I think there is really important learning from looking at how the practice works, with ideas that have the potential to be used at practices across the country.”
Marple Bridge Surgery also scored a 100% score from respondents who thought the receptionists were helpful as well as a score of 99% from respondents reporting that their experience was good. Overall, this earned them 12th place in the country.
Image caption:
Celebrating the number one slot in the national patient survey is the team from High Lane Medical Centre with Anita Rolfe, Director of Health, Quality and Improvement/Deputy Place Lead, One Stockport Health and Care Partnership.
From left to right are Eileen Dunning, Health Care Assistant, Debbie Byrne, Secretary, Dr Bob Mathewson, Lead GP, Paula Davies, Practice Manager, Anita Rolfe, Director of Health, Quality and Improvement/Deputy Place Lead at the One Stockport Health and Care Partnership and Sue Melvin, Secretary.
