Product News
We are looking forward to the Health Bill on Wednesday 19th January.
Among the many announcements, we are hoping for the inclusion of local patient surveys for both GPs and all health trusts. These may include previously
approved surveys GPAQ (General Practice Assessment Questionnaire)
and the IPQ (Improving Practice Questionnaire) which has also already been
identified by the RCGP as fit for purpose for Revalidation.
RCGP identifies CFEP’s surveys as “Fit For Purpose For Revalidation”
The RCGP has recently been undertaking a review of colleague and patient surveys to assess which of these are fit for purpose for revalidation.
A variety of current surveys were analysed by Professor Jocelyn Lockyer of Calgary University Canada who is an expert in this field.
CFEP is pleased to report that it’s in house surveys – Improving Practice Questionnaire (IPQ) patient survey, (Doctors’) Interpersonal Skills
Questionnaire (D)ISQ and Colleague Feedback Evaluation Tool (CFET) colleague survey, along with GMC’s patient and colleague surveys (PQ
and CQ) were all approved as “fit for purpose”. Many of you will know the IPQ which was approved for use in the QOF in the GP contract and has
been used by many thousands of GP practices and also many PCTs.
CFEP has worked with the Peninsula Medical School under contract to the GMC to pilot and validate the GMC questionnaires, and is the only
organisation in the UK currently licensed to offer and analyse these in practice. All results from these surveys will be fed into the ongoing
evaluation of these tools.
CFEP can offer all of these surveys to doctors in their preparations for appraisal and revalidation. We are the only provider currently recognised
by the RCGP as able to offer a choice of ‘fit for purpose’ patient and colleague survey tools that can be combined to create the opportunity to
gain full 360o feedback to meet your needs.
Please be careful when selecting a patient or colleague survey product that you choose a robust and valid tool. The RCGP
statement can be read here and
lists those tools it considers fit for purpose. Professor Lockyer's recent report can be accessed here.
As yet the GMC has not confirmed the formal process for accrediting patient and colleague surveys or indeed the final requirements for revalidation, but
is expected to report back from its consultation on October the 18th.
No other tool measures up to CFEP's questionnaire for patients with long-term conditions
There has been increasing interest in CFEP's Patient Partnership in Care (PPiC) questionnaire, which now over 7000 patients have completed.
PPiC is a generic tool which measures the ability of all clinicians to work in partnership with patients with long-term conditions (LTC) to support and
motivate self management. As data is collected benchmarks specific to clinician types and various LTC are being produced.
PPiC is a concise questionnaire, contained on 2 sides of A4, and is divided into 2 subsections: the first measuring the patient/clinician partnership,
through a series of interpersonal skill evaluation questions, and the second the degree of confidence patients have to self manage their condition.
An extensive literature search has revealed that no other tool measures these two parameters simultaneously.
CFEP currently has a paper entitled "Patient Partnership in Care: A new instrument in measuring
patient-professional partnership in the treatment of long-term conditions" published in the Journal of Management & Marketing in Healthcare, November 2009,
Vol.2, No. 4.
The paper reaffirms the validity of the tool and its reliability and sensitivity to change. In addition, it demonstrates a positive correlation between
partnership and confidence to self manage. The better the partnership the greater the confidence patients have to self manage their particular LTC.
The paper also shows that when the survey is carried out by the same clinician on two occasions with a training session in between the first and second survey,
that results significantly improve on the second occasion. This clearly indicates that by identifying, concentrating on and improving key interpersonal skills
involved in the partnership relationship with patients that confidence to self manage LTC can be increased.
National Patient Survey
The national GP patient surveys has just published its results giving feedback up to 31/12/2009.
We get a lot of enquiries from practices with reference in particular to the “pay” questions PE7 and PE9 in this survey relating to access within the next two working days or the ability to pre-book an appointment in advance. Many practices feel the survey does not record the reality of the service they provide but it certainly does measure patient’s perception of services which is not necessarily the same thing!
Several practices have found our Improving Access Questionnaire (IAQ) useful in understanding more about patient’s desire and demand for appointments. For more information on the IAQ click here.
Primary Care Foundation’s 4th Benchmark to include CFEP Patient Survey
After the successful introduction of the Benchmark Patient Experience Survey in the 2nd Benchmark, CFEP UK Surveys and the Primary Care Foundation (PCF)
are set to collaborate once again for the 4th Out-of-Hours Benchmark. In 2009, for the first time in OOH care, the PCF, in conjunction with CFEP UK Surveys,
administrated the first national audit of OOH care, which included patient feedback. As a result of the Benchmark Patient Experience Survey, CFEP managed to
successful survey over 9,400 patients, and the broad outline of these findings can be found here.
After successful completion of the Benchmark Patient Experience Survey each provider (83 in total) was presented with their own Feedback Report, which helped to contextualise the PCF
Benchmark report and hopefully provided real direction for service improvement for the enhancement of the patient experience.