Simon Moyes, an Orthopaedic Surgeon with practising privileges at London Bridge Hospital and The Wellington Hospital, part of the HCA group, received excellent results in a comprehensive Patient Experience Questionnaire, scoring high marks across all four patient categories; Referral, Appointments, Investigations and Next Steps.
Patient-centred care is an on-going issue within the medical profession, with an increasing number of healthcare professionals integrating question and review systems to highlight areas of concern or establish success trigger points for each interaction.
Conducted by an independent organisation, The Simon Moyes Clinic received excellent scores where 64 patients were surveyed covering a six-month period between May and October 2013. The results reveal the following:
- 98% of Simon Moyes’ patients felt they had a prompt response.
- Over 96% of appointments were offered within 7 working days.
- 100% of patients felt confident/reassured by their doctor and understood the information provided.
- 95% of patients received assistance in arranging diagnostic scans/tests or follow-up activity.
- 97% of patients received a clinic letter explaining the next steps.
Simon Moyes comments, “Each of my patients bring with them expectations, not just in the approach and effectiveness of their treatment but also the way the treatment programme is managed and personalised. The patient satisfaction survey quantifies and qualifies the service for each practitioner, ensuring that the perception of service matches up with what we believe our practice is offering. One of the key factors in maintaining an excellent service is teamwork, giving everyone the responsibility to maintain high standards from the initial patient call to post recovery communications.”
Jenny Ayling, Consultant Services Officer for HCA, says of the results, “It is highly rewarding to receive feedback in a positive way and it goes some way to explaining why The Simon Moyes practice is always busy and thriving.”
When asked about the patient experience questionnaire and the way he achieved such high scores from his patients and how he intends to stay at the top of the industry, Mr Moyes said: “We were asked in the Spring of last year if we were happy to have our practice audited by HCA via their patient experience questionnaire, and slightly nervously agreed to put our head on the block. Fortunately the feedback was positive, demonstrating consistently high scores in all categories of referrals, appointments, investigations, and next-steps.
“I would personally recommend this to any practitioner as a useful process to go through – all the feedback, whether it be positive or negative, is helpful in improving your approach and care towards patients.
“We achieved these results by having an excellent administration team as the first point of contact. My PA and secretarial staff answer the phone virtually immediately, and return a call within a few minutes if it goes to answerphone. Our patients are never turned away and every effort is made to see them within the time-frame that suits them, including the same day if requested. As a result, my clinics have to be started early or finish late. This is what we do to put our patients first.
“We appreciate that patients have extremely busy lives and my practice nurse and I work very hard to make sure that the clinics run to time – we understand that no one likes to be kept waiting. We also go out of our way to make sure that patients understand their problem and what the best treatment plan is. This involves not only explaining verbally what the problem is but also reinforcing that by going through their imaging modalities. This often also involves using a range of anatomic models, plus going through other information online with them.
“I or my nurse arrange the relevant imaging for the patient and will endeavour to do this with the patient’s convenience in mind – for instance arranging it on the same day in the same clinic if possible. Again we explain to our patients why we are choosing the particular imaging modality and its advantages. After a diagnosis has been made, a treatment plan is set out for the patient and a letter dictated to their GP in front of them. We would then forward this on to the patient by email and also to any other relevant professional involved. This, I think, helps to reiterate our explanation of their condition and management programme.
“Our method of delivering patient care has evolved over many years in private practice with us relying on both positive and negative feedback from our patients and referrers. At the end of the day, our practice is a service industry and we aim to make it as successful as possible.
“Going forwards, it is important for us to continue to maintain a good service with high scores from our patients. We will continue to listen very closely to our patients, referrers and colleagues about how we deliver our practice and aim to permanently look for ways to improve it.”