Health and beauty

Check up on your surgery’s health

By Natalie Slater
March 11, 2010

The scores are on the doors for GP practices in Reading, West Berkshire and Wokingham with a league table published online.

Patients can access information on how their GP surgery – out of 56 in the area – has scored on a list of criteria set out by NHS Berkshire West with a rating next to each performance indicator.

The latest report highlights how:

- All GP surgeries in Reading with the exception of Western Elms Avenue Surgery in West Reading have been accepting new patients over the past 12 months.
- Grovelands Medical Centre, London Road Surgery, Pangbourne Medical Practice and Peppard Road Surgery are still failing to offer extended opening hours.
- A number of surgeries are failing to offer cervical smear tests to all eligible patients.
- Chatham Street Surgery, London Road Surgery, Milman Road Surgery (Dr Lister’s practice) and Western Elms Surgery are failing to give flu jabs to all patients over 65.
- Peppard Road Surgery received top marks in all but extended opening hours, but there is a general and widespread dissatisfaction in Reading at GP access via the phone.
- Booking an appointment more than two days in advance is generally rated as either meeting or below expected achievement with only Pangbourne Medical Practice, Peppard Road Surgery and the University Health Centre at high.

Reading Walk-In Centre was not open when the data was collated.

Equally mixed results have been shown in West Berkshire with three out of 11 surgeries failing on extended opening hours and three out of 11 failing on smear tests.

Wokingham has much the same pattern although Cedar House Surgery in Nine Mile Ride excelled at offering extended opening hours, smear tests and flu jabs and phone access and appointments in advance.

Charles Waddicor, NHS Berkshire West chief executive, said: “All our research shows people greatly value the services provided by GPs and their staff and there is a high level of trust in GP services.

“This initiative will provide valuable information for local people and will help them make their decisions on which GP practice they think is right for them. It will also enable GPs to assess their own practice performance against others so they can see and celebrate their successes and if need be identify any areas of possible improvement.”

How does your surgery fare?

Column one: surgery name, column two: Does the surgery provide extended hours? Column three is the percentage of patients satisfied with telephone access. cloumn four is the percentage of patients able to book an appointment within 48 hours, column five is the percentage of patients able to book an appointment more than two days ahead, column 6 is the percentage of patients over 65 who have had a flu jab and colum seven is the percentage of eligible patients who have had a smear test.

The achievement levels for each category are show in bold: 3 = High achievement 2 = Meeting expected achievement levels 1 = Below expected achievement

Abbey Medical Centre	Yes 3	69 1	79 2	78 2	81.3 3	82.57 3
Balmore Park Surgery	Yes 3	77 2	81 2	87 2	81 3	82.15 3
Chatham Street Surgery	Yes 3	68 1	77 2	69 2	58.9 1	65.85 1
Circuit Lane Surgery	Yes 3	55 1	80 2	45 1	72.8 3	77,62 1
Eldon Road (Dr Narayan)	Yes 3	85 2	59 1	77 2	70 3	82.6 3
Emmer Green Surgery	Yes 3	66 1	71 2	73 2	79 3	80.79 3
Grovelands Medical Centre	No 1	57 1	77 2	74 2	76.6 3	77.14 1
Kennet Surgery	Yes 3	76 2	73 2	80 2	80.3 3	75.83 1
London Road (Dr S Patel)	No 1	71 2	82 2	53 1	68.9 1	75.9 1
London Street Surgery	Yes 3	69 1	90 3	60 2	76.9 3	73.35 1
Longbarn Lane Surgery	Yes 3	63 1	91 3	64 2	70.5 3	78.11 1
Melrose Surgery (Dr Dean)	Yes 3	57 1	85 2	67 2	80.6 3	71.9 1
Melrose Surgery (Dr Williams)	Yes 3	79 2	90 3	59 1	70.6 3	69.02 1
Milman Road (Dr Kumar)	Yes 3	86 2	97 3	77 2	77.5 3	78.25 1
Milman Road (Dr Lister)	Yes 3	70 2	79 2	44 1	68.7 1	77.33 1
Mortimer Surgery	Yes 3	67 1	85 2	78 2	78.8 3	89.91 3
Pangbourne Medical Practice	No 1	81 2	85 2	90 3	72.1 3	83.42 3
Pembroke Surgery	Yes 3	78 2	79 2	83 2	77.4 3	83.39 3
Peppard Road (Dr Chadwick)	No 1	95 3	97 3	94 3	73.6 3	84.46 3
Priory Avenue Surgery	Yes 3	48 1	62 1	63 2	80.4 3	79.63 1
Russell Street	Yes 3	73 2	84 2	85 2	77 3	83.13 3
South Reading Surgery	Yes 3	84 2	88 2	74 2	75.8 3	73.12 1
Theale Medical Centre	Yes 3	73 2	80 2	83 2	77.4 3	81.87 3
Tilehurst Partnership	Yes 3	56 1	92 3	54 1	83.7 3	81.23 3
Tilehurst Village Surgery	Yes 3	58 1	87 2	69 2	71.4 3	79.57 1
University Health Centre	Yes 3	85 2	89 2	90 3	76.9 3	62.81 1
Western Elms Surgery	Yes 3	79 2	72 2	82 2	65 1	TBC 1
Westwood Road Surgery	Yes 3	77 2	88 2	52 1	73.9 3	77.44 1
Whitley Villa (Dr Naran)	Yes 3	59 1	83 2	63 2	75.5 3	79.08 1

Selected data is featured here. For full details of how your GP surgery performed visit: http://www.berkshirewest-pct.nhs.uk/page-ed-pview.asp?fldArea=2&fldMenu=1&fldSubMenu=4&fldKey=693

nslater@reading-epost.co.uk

| Submit Comments | View Comments (3)

« Previous Story | Next Story »

Most recent user comments 3 of 3

Show 15 | 25 | 50 per page

even more disgusting is that I sent an email to the one provided in this article and nearly a month later they haven't even bothered replying, not even slight acknowledgment!

Sammi88
01/04/2010 at 14:55

I too disagree with a part of the results shown. My surgery is at Grovelands Medical Centre where i have recently made an appointment nearly three full weeks away. I have been with this practice for some years now and am completely happy with the level of service they provide.Ian Jacobs (my G.P) has always been very professional and has always put me at ease and shown the utmost respect to me whenever i have had cause to visit him. I cannot comment on their "out of hours" service as i haven't had to use use it.

spankyspanky, Reading
14/03/2010 at 14:40

I would like to disagree with this survey, I know that Pangbourne Medical Practice offer extended hours, they are open form 7am on an Monday and Wednesday and are open one Saturday morning every month. Saturday surgery's have actually been cut down in the last year, due to the fact that very few patients were utilising the appointments. Pangbourne surgery offer 'Book on the Day' appointments, aswell as the emergency 'Access Surgery' every afternoon.

‘Reading Walk-in centre was not open when the data was collated’, this statement here shows that the data spoken about, is over 8 months old, as the walk-in centre was opened in August 2009. An article containing out-of-date information is very misleading, a date of when the information collated should have been clearly stated in the article, many of the surgeries spoken about would have changed incredibly over the last 8 months.