Sheffield NHS GP Walk In Centre
Local / Sheffield Sep 08, 2010 - 02:04 AM GMTBy: N_Walayat
The last Labour governments solution towards badly performing GP surgeries was to introduce Super Surgeries or Poly Clinics. Sheffield saw its own GP Polyclinic or Super Surgery open during mid 2009 that aimed to fill the gap in the wide disparity in quality of GP health care throughout the city by operating a 7 days a week service from 8am to 8pm.
The latest Department of Health funded UK GP Patient survey data for the first time includes patient feed back for the new walk in centre which registers a patient satisfaction rating of 95%, which therefore meets my minimum criteria for what one would rank as a good GP surgery.
The new walk in centre is situated in the centre of Sheffield on the corner of Rockingham Street and Broad Lane, which purports to allow any member of the public to walk in and see a doctor without the need to be registered with the health centre that offers a wide range of healthcare services which presents a good alternative to especially Sheffield's bottom ranking GP surgeries, despite the need to travel several miles, though where ones health is concerned that should be seen as a minor inconvenience.
Parking - The only real drawback to the health in centre is that drivers will need to pay for off street parking Monday to Saturday 08:00 to 18:30 that costs -
- Up to 1 Hours 85pUp to 2 Hours £1.70
Up to 3 Hours £2.55
Up to 4 Hours £3.40
Up to 5 Hours £4.25
Up to 6 Hours £5.10
All Day £6.40
Motorcycles Free
Disabled Badge Holders Free
The good news is that Sundays are free all day, so perhaps centre staff should allow for expectations for greater demand during Sundays.
UK GP Patient Survey 2009-10
The Department of Health funded UK GP Patient Survey 2009-10 Q4 survey results were recently released that bring the total detailed questionnaires being sent out to patients during the year to more than 5.5 million across England of which 2.17 million were returned.
For the city of Sheffield a total of 65,339 questionnaires were sent out to the patients of Sheffield's 92 GP surgeries of which 27,380 were returned from which detailed results were compiled as listed below for the Overall Satisfaction category for all of Sheffield's GP surgeries ranked in order from best to worst.
Results Analysis
Of Sheffield's 92 GP surgeries, 24 or 26% managed to achieve a rating of 95% or higher, which given the importance of health care should be the minimum goal for ALL GP surgeries. Next 43 (46%) of Sheffield GP surgeries managed to attain a patient satisfaction level of 90-94% of their patients, 19 (20%) between 85% and 89%, followed by 6 GP surgeries scraping the bottom of the barrel, notably Darnall Community Health coming in at an abysmally poor bottom ranking of just 68%.
Sheffield's Top 5 GP Surgeries
| Level of Satisfaction Q1-Q4 | Level of Satisfaction Q1-Q3 | |
| MILL ROAD SURGERY | 99% |
99% |
| STANNINGTON MEDICAL CENTRE | 98% |
98% |
| RUSTLINGS ROAD MEDICAL CENTRE | 98% |
98% |
| THE HEALTH CARE SURGERY | 98% |
98% |
| JAUNTY SPRINGS HEALTH CENTRE | 97% |
98% |
The results show that Sheffield's best performing Surgeries continue to cluster in the affluent areas of the city, which is reflective of the 'post code lottery' where those that reside in the affluent wards due to more likely being professionals are able to demand a better quality of NHS GP services than those that tend to reside in the deprived wards who tend to suffer in silent as to what passes for health care provision which plays a significant part in contributing to a more than 14 YEAR GAP IN LIFE EXPECTANCY between peoples living just a few miles distance from one another, which has been commented upon in the past by the Sheffield MP and Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg :
"It is an outrage that social mobility has slowed, not increased, under the Blair-Brown years. It is an outrage that in Sheffield, where I’m an MP, life expectancy in the poorest wards is a full 14 years below the life expectancy of those living in the wealthiest wards. Your life chances are now set by the circumstances of your birth as never before."
Sheffield's Bottom 5 GP Surgeries
| Level of Satisfaction Q1-Q4 | Level of Satisfaction Q1-Q3 | |
| HAROLD STREET MEDICAL CENTRE | 83% |
80% |
| STONECROFT MEDICAL CENTRE | 80% |
79% |
| HIGHGATE SURGERY | 76% |
75% |
| DARNALL HEALTH CENTRE (MEHROTRA) | 73% |
70% |
| DARNALL COMMUNITY HEALTH | 68% |
70% |
Sheffield's worst ranked GP surgeries on balance showed a slight improvement over the earlier Q1-Q3 results, all that is except Darnall Community Health that sunk to new depths where virtually 1/3rd of the surgeries patients are dissatisfied at the quality of health care received. The Sheffield Primary Care Trust had promised an improvement for Q4 which failed to materialise.
Sheffield PCT had publicised over a year ago that a new £5.5 million medical centre would be built in Darnall by now, but a year on the proposed site remains untouched which implies the new medical centre with new staff remains at least a year away from materialising (if ever).
Meanwhile the new Coalition Government was apparently so impressed by Sheffield PCT's achievements, such as employing 400 bureaucrats in a new multi-million pound headquarters, that it has decided to scrap it and ALL of the other PCT's in favour of GP Consortia's directly managing patient treatment commissioning (the process could take 2-3 years to implement). Though when considering the consequences of the 2003 GP contracts, this does not bode well for where much of the new annual £80 billion budget to be placed under GP management will actually finally end up.
Results For All 92 Sheffield GP Surgeries Ranked in Order of Patient Overall Satisfaction of Care Received
Data Source - http://results.gp-patient.co.uk/report/main.aspx
Source: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article22505.html
By Nadeem Walayat
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