LETTER: Dedication to great service

As you have reported last week, at the recent and exceptionally thorough inspection of our surgery, the CQC inspectors were so impressed that they gave the practice an Outstanding rating and our staff should take a great deal of the credit for this accolade.

PMG provides care to 13,000 patients over a 150 square mile area in West Sussex. As a whole we provide at least 80,000 GP and nursing appointments and carry out more than 1,000 home visits every year.

Well over a quarter of our practice population is greater than 65 years and four per cent of our patients are registered as carers.

Multiple medical problems requiring complex regimes of medication are therefore commonplace and yet we have a low attendance rate at the local A&E departments. Furthermore, over the ten years that our surgery building has been open, we have won a PACE Setter award for our care of children and young people and Alan Bolt, our Managing Partner, has worked tirelessly to extend the range of medical services available to all our patients.

In so doing many fewer trips to hospitals are needed. These specialist-led NHS clinics now cover a wide range of areas including: dermatology, paediatrics, physiotherapy, psychiatry, cognitive behaviour therapy and ear, nose and throat medicine, audiology and podiatry. Next month, an NHS ultrasound scanning service will also begin.

During this time, we have also been very well-supported by our Patient Participation Group, known as PPL, who carry out the vital role of ensuring that, despite the amazing number of changes the NHS has been making us go through recently, we have kept considering the needs of our patients as the priority in all that we have to do.

We are also fortunate to be able to work with such excellent community nurses from the Community Trust, with the Macmillan Service and with the expert pharmacists, and their team, at Corden’s pharmacy.

However, to be able to achieve so much for our patients is not just about having great GPs, nurses and managers at PMG, but it also requires very dedicated and motivated non-clinical staff working both on the frontline as receptionists and telephonists, and also behind the scenes in administration and finance.

In short, at PMG, every member of team really cares about the service our patients receive and it is a privilege to work alongside them.

Thankfully, we do not have to entertain the CQC inspectors again for several year, but in the meantime we are confident that the team at PMG will continue to provide an Outstanding service to our patients.

Thank you for helping us celebrate this success and sharing with your readers our gratitude to our staff for making it possible.

Dr Tim Fooks

On behalf of the PMG partners, Pulborough Medical Group, Spiro Close, Pulborough

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