GP practices across the country are under increasing strain with a growing demand for services. In Gosport a number of GPs are set to retire in the near future and there are difficulties recruiting new GPs to work on the peninsula, so the pressure on local surgeries is increasing.
Local people have told the CCG that they would like to see GPs and other health and social care staff working more closely together. They would like to be able to access urgent GP appointments more easily and through a variety of ways including phone and online consultations. Local people would also like us to use IT services more effectively so that their patient record is available to all of the professionals caring for them.
All of the GP practices in Gosport are now working together with support from Fareham and Gosport Primary Care Alliance to look at how they can tackle these issues and transform primary care in the local area. The first stage has been for the eleven individual practices to agree a collective vision for an accessible, high quality and comprehensive service for local people and work is now well underway to turn this into reality.
The first stage has been for the practices to agree to work together on the following priorities:
- Improving access to same day appointments
- Developing an integrated multi-professional team with GPs, community staff, social care staff and pharmacists all working together
- Tackling the clinical recruitment issues
- Developing a common GP IT system
- Reviewing the estates currently used and ensuring we use these effectively
- Looking at the potential of sharing back office functions
The views of local people and our partners are central to this work and the practices, with support from the ICB, will continue to seek their views and ensure these are used to help transform primary care. This will be done using a range of ways including going to the sixth form college to see what young people think, attending local groups and working closely with the Patient Participation Groups at the practices.