Apollo-Surgery-Leaflet

The Apollo Surgery is an established Training Practice and is part of Birmingham and Solihull ICB. We provide high quality general medical services and additional enhanced services to our population of patients who reside in and around Kingstanding & Oscott. We aim to monitor our workload and provision of services and adapt accordingly. Our goal is to be as effective and efficient as possible in terms of the healthcare we provide and the business we run. We wish to remain focussed on providing excellent primary care services for our patients and we will encourage and reflect on their feedback.

We want to maintain a rich educational environment for our learners and encourage personal development of our team members and enhance their skills.

We wish to maintain a rich educational environment for our learners and encourage personal development of all our team members and enhance their skills. We wish to build upon our already excellent practice team working relationships and levels of mutual support.

We focus on achievement, teamwork and patients best interests at all times.

The practice will deliver efficient and effective primary care to the community by ensuring that:

• We are driven by the health needs of our patients, by best clinical and managerial practice and by benchmarking our performance.
• We demand professionalism at all levels and accept the need for ongoing training and personal development within the team.
• We are outward looking and opportunistic. Aiming to maximise service level improvements through partnerships and agreements within the community and wider health area.
• We are pro-active and forward looking in the fields of medical and business innovation.
• We believe in a primary care-led health service.
• We are committed to a caring, understanding and human approach to patient care and to fairness and mutual respect within the team.

We aim to provide the best possible service to our patients and hope you will feel that we achieve that aim. The care of your health is a partnership between yourself and the Primary Health Care Team. The success of that partnership depends on an understanding of each other’s needs and co-operation between us.

Our responsibility to you:

• You will be greeted courteously.

• You have a right to confidentiality.

• You have the right to see your medical records subject to the limitations of the law.

• You will be seen the same day if your problem is urgent.

• You will be informed if there will be a delay of more than 20 minutes for your appointment.

• You will be referred to a consultant when your GP thinks it necessary.

• You will be given the result of any test or investigation on request or at your next appointment.

• Your repeat prescription will be ready for collection within 2 working days of your request.

• Your suggestions and comments about the services offered will be considered sympathetically and any complaint dealt with quickly.

 Your responsibility to us:

• Please treat all surgery staff with the same respect – we are all just doing our job.

• Do not ask for information about anyone other than yourself.

• Tell us of any change of name or address, so that our records are accurate.

• Only request an urgent appointment if appropriate.

• Home visits should only be requested if you are really too ill to attend surgery, and night visits should be for emergencies only.

• Please cancel your appointment if you are unable to attend

• Please be punctual, but be prepared to wait if your own consultation is delayed by an unexpected emergency

• Please allow sufficient time for your consultant’s letter or the results of any tests to reach us.

• Use the tear off slip to request your repeat prescription whenever possible. Please attend for review, when asked, before your next prescription is due

• Do let us know whenever you feel we have not met our responsibility to you.

• We would, of course, be pleased to hear when you feel praise is due as well.

We are a teaching practice with Birmingham University, University of Central England, & West Midlands Deanery.

As a teaching practice, we have a new GP registrar every 6 months as part of their GP training.  We also have nursing students, 5th year medical students for part of the year and a Foundation Doctors every 4 months. There experience in general practice is invaluable to them, and the profession in encouraging them to consider General Practice as a career.

Video Consultations

Clinicians will sometimes video patient consultations, this is an important part of medical teaching and we hope that you feel able to agree to your consultation being filmed. This will help towards the doctors training and will only be used for training and assessment purposes. The recording will not take place without the patient’s consent. The video tape is confidential and will be deleted after use.

The Doctors, nurses and all staff are committed to the provision of High Quality Patient Care and best practice, through the delivery of services which are timely, considerate and responsive to the needs of our patient population, and supported by a clear focus on customer service.

To achieve this we will:

• Listen to and understand the needs of our patients, and wherever possible reflect those needs on our services or ensure they are sourced for you;
• Provide an environment which is clean, safe, and conducive to high quality patient care;
• Provide urgent appointments that enable patients, as a minimum, to talk to a clinician on the day;
• Offer patients, with on-going health issues, a clinical programme, jointly owned by both of us, to ensure that their reviews and medication are managed effectively;
• Ensure that clinical and non-clinical staff partake in Continuous Professional Development, ensuring we practice in accordance with national guidelines, recognise best practice, enable our patients and the Practice to benefit from continuous improvement and working with the wider healthcare environment to deliver innovative solutions;
• Provide excellent customer service, by ensuring we respond to you in an open, caring and timely fashion and importantly keep our promises;
• Utilise available technology to enable all our clinical staff to respond effectively to your healthcare needs;
• Ensure your prescription when already on “repeat” is ready for collection with 48 hours or where there is an issue contact you to advise of any delay;
• Provide non-NHS services in a timely fashion against an agreed tariff;
• Regularly communicate with you on Surgery performance;
• Respond quickly and pro-actively to any concerns you may have about the service you receive from us.