Park Leys Medical Practice

The coming year promises to be another busy one for us all at Park Leys. After the new surgery development in 2006, then the radical overhaul of the appointment system in 2007, 2008 will see a lot of our efforts concentrated on our prescribing systems, as we try to maximise safe, cost-effective prescribing.

For more information on the changes made to the appointment system in 2007, the results of a patient survey and further changes planned for later this year, follow the link at the bottom of this page.

Recent changes in the organisation of the NHS have meant that we are now given a practice budget which includes prescribing. If we are able to save money in this area, these changes allow us to reinvest a proportion of the savings into the practice, perhaps for physiotherapy, or additional community nursing, for example. We are very keen to take advantage of this opportunity, and have therefore chosen to join a group of Coventry GP’s called “Godiva PBC” who are sharing budgets to try and maximise the benefit that practice based commissioning could bring. We are fortunate that our Practice Manager, Mr. Chris Mullett, has been elected to serve on the board of Godiva.

For more information on Godiva follow the link at the bottom of this page to their web site.

What will this mean for our patients?

There are many areas of potential savings in the practice, and Godiva have helped identify key areas from which savings can be most easily made. This will not mean any lowering of the quality of drugs that we prescribe, or reduction in standards of care, but it will mean that if two drugs are equally effective, then the less expensive one will be used. With a budget approaching £1.5 million, we are optimistic that our work with Godiva will produce significant savings that will enable us to make very positive changes in the services that the practice is able to offer.

In addition to this work, we are also planning to make annual checks on all repeat prescriptions mandatory. This will help maximise patient safety and minimise waste. Approximately 5,000 of our 11,000 patients are using our repeat prescribing system for at least one drug. At the present time 81% of these patients have had a formal medication review with a member of our team within the past fifteen months. We are aiming to increase this to 99% within the next six months. To maintain this we are introducing a system which will require all patients to have such a review at least annually before repeat prescriptions can be renewed. We hope that this will not cause too much inconvenience to patients, but firmly believe with the increasing complexity of drug regimes, that such a change is vital for the safety of everyone.

Finally, if you have any queries, or suggestions about the above points, please do ring or write to me or use the contacts page to email. I will reply as soon as possible, as we continue to try and improve services at Park-Leys together.