Have your say on the future of Aston Healthcare GP practices
Aston Healthcare provides primary care medical services to over 24,000 patients across Huyton, Kirkby, Halewood, Whiston in Knowsley, and Liverpool. The services are provided from six separate Aston Healthcare locations.
As you will be aware in 2020 we took over as a new management team. At that time, all Aston branch practices, and the main surgery were experiencing a range particularly challenging issues. A major issue was safety and standards of care being provided. As part of a solution, we introduced a clinical triage team and put in robust systems and standard operating procedures. The updated systems ensure we provide an excellent quality system and process including medicines management (e.g. ordering and issuing prescriptions). Having a standard operating system affords our patients to have access to other Aston practices see a GP and a wider range of qualified healthcare professionals. The outcome of those changes has resulted the CQC practice rating change. When we took over the management of the practices Aston Healthcare practices was rated as ‘Needing Improvement.’ In October 2021 a further CQC inspection took place, and as a result of making changes in service delivery, the CQC has now rated all Aston Healthcare practices as ‘Good’. In addition, Knowsley Healthwatch most recent monitoring report (October 2020–March 2021) has rated Aston Healthcare as 4.4 out of 5 stars which classed as ‘Good/ Excellent’
We continue to review and improve patient experience, safety, and the quality of services you receive. To achieve this, we regularly engage with our staff and practice patient participation groups in suggesting ideas and solutions to issues.
We have been informed by Knowsley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) that in the coming months the CCG will be significantly reducing funding to several Knowsley GP practices, and this includes all of Aston Healthcare practices. The funding reduction will significantly impact on our range of services and staff. Therefore, in response we are addressing this proactively and have developed draft solutions as part of preparing for this financial reduction and also addressing the challenges of delivering a wide range services across six locations. To review both issues will enable us to ensure we make the best possible use of the clinical teams who provide your healthcare as well as the practices those services are provided from.
Overall, we want to ensure the sustainability of all Aston Healthcare practices now and in the future. We will undertake the following activities to inform and support our decision making:-
- engage all Aston Healthcare staff to hear their views in response to potential solutions;
- review all Aston Healthcare practices service delivery;
- review attendance and patient need in practices and the use of Out of Hours services;
- consider the feedback from Aston Healthcare patients, staff and the public;
- make the best use of the existing buildings and facilities that are provided across Knowsley.
We have written to all registered patients to ask for their views on possible solutions to continue to provide Aston Healthcare services in the future.
Due to pandemic restrictions, the NHS has been instructed to continue to operate social distancing and therefore a public meeting cannot take place at the practice.
Any information you provide will be added to for analysis and handled in accordance with GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.
To find out more about the impact and potential solutions, please read the discussion paper. Click on the link below to access the discussion paper and find out more about how you can comment and how to request any support in sharing your views (https://bit.ly/Back-Doc-Aston)
The online survey is open from 7th March until 15th April 2022. Please click the link to access the patient and public survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Astonpatientpublic
You can also scan this QR code on your phone or tablet camera to access the survey
The survey also asks respondents to provide their full postcode and demographic profiling data (age, gender, ethnicity etc.). This information is used to ensure the responses are representative of the demographics of the whole local population. The postcode data will also be used to profile and segment those participating in this engagement.
The data will be available in its entirety to Jacqueline Robinson who is independently leading this engagement. A feedback report and a summary of respondents will be shared with Aston Healthcare leadership team. You do not have to provide this information to take part in the survey.
Any reports published using the insights from the survey will not contain any personal identifiable information and only show feedback in anonymous format. These anonymised results may be shared publicly, for example on NHS public facing websites and/or printed and distributed.
Your involvement is voluntary, and you are free to stop completing the questionnaire at any time and if you are completing this online you can do so by closing this webpage. Only submitted responses will be included in the analysis. You can also refuse to answer questions in this survey, should you wish. All information collected via the survey will be held for a period of five years from the date of survey closure, in line with the Records Management Code of Practice for Health and Social Care 2016, which all NHS organisations work under.
If you have any queries about your involvement with this questionnaire, please email: Jacqueline.robinson28@nhs.net