Issue - meetings

[To receive a report from the Black Country and West Birmingham CCG on the changes to Primary Care since their last report to the Panel on Access to Primary Care, which was in December 2021]. 

[To receive a report from Healthwatch Wolverhampton, titled, “An investigation into booking GP appointments in Wolverhampton: Have improvements been made’].

The Wolverhampton Managing Director from the Black Country and West Birmingham CCG presented the CCG report on Primary Care.  He commented that the Healthwatch report had been very helpful in providing an update on telephone access.  They recognised and broadly concurred with the key messages set out on page 5 of the Healthwatch Wolverhampton report.  He was pleased that the average time taken to answer a call had been reduced from an average of ten minutes to an average of five minutes.  He was also pleased that the RWT (Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust) Primary Care Network had seen a reduction in their average call answer time from an average of 35 minutes to 3 minutes.  There were however some practices within the Primary Networks taking too long to answer calls.  Healthwatch Wolverhampton had promised to share the specific detail from which the report had been formulated.  They would follow up with Practices where answering calls remained a particular challenge.

The Wolverhampton Managing Director from the Black Country and West Birmingham CCG stated that in April in Wolverhampton around two thirds of consultations were face to face appointments.  The figure was a little higher than the national average of 62%.  Over the period of January to March 2022, when Covid levels had been particularly high, the key focus of the CCG on GP Access had been the implementation of the Winter Access Fund.  This fund had enabled 12,000 additional appointments to be made available to patients in Wolverhampton. 

The Wolverhampton Managing Director from the Black Country and West Birmingham CCG remarked that the CCG had continued with the implementation of the Community Pharmacy Consultation Service.  Wolverhampton Practices and Pharmacies were achieving the national targets for the roll-out of the service.  With reference to digital access, the CCG had made connections with the Council’s, Digital Wolves Team.  They had also been offering training to Practice Managers on the development of Patient Participation Groups.  They would be working with Practice Managers to ensure these were reintroduced if they had been stopped or changed during the pandemic.  

The Wolverhampton Managing Director from the Black Country and West Birmingham CCG remarked that the CCG had reviewed telephony systems in practices.  A procurement exercise had been completed to identify a preferred provider who could offer a telephony system with wide ranging functionality, where the existing system at a practice did not offer it.  Individual practices were responsible for the ongoing costs of their own telephony system and it was therefore their decision if they wished to change provider.  They were in discussions with a number of practices who were interested in changing their system.  The report provided an update on the new telephony system being used at RWT and the improvements the new system had enabled.  

The Wolverhampton Managing Director from the Black Country and West Birmingham CCG stated the CCG had commissioned a team to work with practices to review their digital offer.  This was to ensure they met the core requirements of the national  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4