Quality
Quality is difficult to measure in medicine. The clinical staff practice evidence based medicine and are aware of the latest guidelines and protocols from organisations like NICE and the National Service Frameworks. All the partners participate in an annual appraisal of their educational requirements, which is carried out by a trained and PCT approved appraiser. This will form part of the GP revalidation process that is currently being negotiated between the GMC, Royal College of General Practitioners and government.
QOF
The government makes an attempt to measure our clinical quality of service using clinical data obtained from the practice computer systems. The government also measures our administration efficiency by using a large number of documents we have to complete annually and submit to the primary care trust. Together this is called the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF). Last year (2005-2006) the practice scored 1041 points out of a possible 1050. Some practices score more points but exclude up to 10% of there patients from being included in the calculation (e.g on age grounds). We do not exclude any. We believe in quality care for everybody - no exclusions!
This year the government have moved the goalposts considerably and reduced the possible maximum score to 1000 and increased the number of clinical conditions that are included making a high score extremely difficult to achieve however in 2006 -2007 the practice scored 994 points out of 1000 - again with no exclusions!
Patient Survey Results
Every year for the last few years over the summer patients who visit us at the health centre may be asked to complete a GPAQ questionnaire about us. The report we get is huge - but in summary you are very pleased with us! The reports are unedited.