PAPER B
SOCIAL SERVICES, HOUSING AND BENEFITS SELECT
COMMITTEE- 18 SEPTEMBER 2003
PATIENT ADVICE AND LIAISON SERVICE (PALS)
QUARTERLY REPORT
BY THE CHAIRMAN OF SOCIAL SERVICES,
HOUSING AND BENEFITS SELECT COMMITTEE
REASON FOR SELECT
COMMITTEE CONSIDERATION
To provide the Committee with an overview of patient contacts for the
months of April, May and June 2003 with the Patient Advice and Liaison Service
(PALS).
ACTION REQUIRED BY THE SELECT COMMITTEE
To make recommendations
BACKGROUND
Members are already aware that under Part 1 of the Local Government Act
2000, councils were given power to do “anything they consider likely to promote
or improve the economic, social or environmental well being of the area”. The Health and Social Care Act 2001 gives further
powers for overview and scrutiny committees to scrutinise health services
within their locality.
As part of the new Healthcare arrangements, PALS has been established
to respectfully and confidentially help patients and their relatives with any
queries or concerns they may have concerning their care or treatment. The attached report from PALS provides
details of the service activity over a 3 month period.
RELEVANT PLANS,
POLICIES, STRATEGIES AND PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
This report has been requested by the Committee following its
development away day. The Committee has included an overview and scrutiny of
the PALS as part of its wider health responsibility. This work is also part of the Council’s corporate objectives to
“improve health, housing and quality of life for all”.
The powers to undertake this review are from the Local Government Act
2000 and the Health and Social Care Act 2001.
There are no Financial or Crime and Disorder Implications.
APPENDICES
ATTACHED
Appendix
1 Quarterly report of the Isle of Wight Patient and Liaison Service (PALS).
None.
Contact Point :Ian Stephens CC, Chairman, Social Services,
Housing and Benefits Select Committee.
COUNCILLOR IAN
STEPHENS
ISLE
OF WIGHT HEALTHCARE TRUST
AND
ISLE
OF WIGHT PRIMARY CARE TRUST
PATIENT
ADVICE AND LIAISON SERVICE
QUARTERLY
REPORT
APRIL
2003 – JUNE 2003
Quarterly report of the Isle of Wight Patient Advice and Liaison Service
(PALS)
1.1
The purpose of
this report is to:
·
Update the
Isle of Wight Healthcare Trust and the Isle of Wight Primary Care Trust
Executive Boards
·
Provide a
report for:
-
Clinical
Governance Department
-
All NHS staff
and Managers
-
All other
interested parties
1.2
This report
gives an overview of patient contacts for the months of April, May and June
2003. Due to the ever-increasing demand
of the service it has only been possible to provide a full months data for June
2003. However, it is hoped that PALS
will be able to continue keeping up to date with the data in-put from now on
and provide a full three months data by next quarter.
The graph depicted shows the total patient
contacts for each Directorate for the months shown. You will notice that there is an increase in the contacts for the
Primary Care Directorate during May and June, this is related to PALS taking
over the role of verbal concerns/complaints for Dental Practices across the
Island. This has obviously had an
impact on the workload of the service increasing the demand for PALS by
approximately 10% per month.
You will find a break down of the figures
for total PALS contacts for each month by Directorate, over the page from the
graph.
As can be seen from the graph, PALS received 39 verbal complaints in June 2003. These complaints are related to various aspects of health care i.e. lack of advice given, procedure not explained, patient complaining of treatment received and the lack of NHS dentists available to the Island populous.
The lack of NHS Dental Practices on the Island is a non-resolvable issue for PALS and as Dentists retire form practice or leave the Island, which two have done this month leaving 6,000 people trying to re-register with a Dental Practice, the complaints will continue to come in.
4
Verbal Complaints (by relative/friend)
PALS received a total of 16 verbal complaints by a relative/friend of the person involved. It is always the policy of PALS to explain to the person complaining, about the Health Trusts’ laws of confidentiality, having to gain authorisation from the person involved, before looking into the matter on behalf of a third party. As can be seen from the relevant graph the issues raised were diverse with no one area providing serious cause for concern.
5
Enquiries (by the patient)
There were 102 enquiries to PALS by the patient. As can be seen from the relevant graph, there are three main recurring areas for which PALS get the most enquiries.
By far the most calls are related to i.e. awaiting outpatient appointments and awaiting admission. Those Departments/GP Practices involved with “Booked Admissions” and “Partial Booking” alleviates the distress caused to patients when they are referred to a Consultant because the patient has an active role in booking their outpatient appointment. However, all the enquiries we receive are related to GP referrals, which the patient does not receive any confirmation of until they get their appointment letter, which may be up to 20 weeks time. It is therefore hoped that with the increasing number of departments taking on partial/full booking the enquiries will decline, along with the clinic DNA’s.
PALS still receive calls related to admission for surgery, however, it is hoped that with the opening of the Pre Admission and Assessment Unit (PAAU) that these calls will eventually become less with time. For this to take place, however, it is important to note, that when the public contact a department they expect their query to be resolved within an agreed time limit. PAAU have been inundated with calls at times and along with their workload of maintaining theatre lists for each specialty it has been difficult for them to resolve some issues relating to admission. Therefore PALS will continue to resolve these issues as they arise, maintaining a close working relationship with the PAAU.
Queries related to “waiting for results” may be difficult to resolve and will probably be an ongoing issue that PALS will be involved with. Patients expect their GP’s to automatically get copies of results of tests undertaken in this hospital and mainland hospitals but of course this is not the case. It is the requesting doctor/consultant who automatically is sent a copy of the results. However, PALS can intervene and request that results be sent to the GP at the discretion of the doctor/consultant involved.
6
Enquiries (by relative/advocate)
These enquiry issues are almost a mirror image of the “enquiries by the patient” as seen in the previous paragraph and total 29 for the month of June 2003.
7
GP enquiries
A total of 11 enquiries were received, for the month of June 2003, from GP Practices on behalf of their patients. As can be seen from the relevant graph these enquiries were related to issues around i.e. lack of clinical information received, outpatient appointments and awaiting results.
I have dealt with two of these issues in previous paragraphs and will explain the third herewith.
Three enquiries to PALS from GP Practices were related to the lack of information received by GPs’, two of which were related to a delay in discharge information being received and one regarding a patient’s last clinic letter not being received by the GP.
8
Verbal complaint (by GP)
PALS received one complaint from a GP related to his/her patient receiving two telephone calls trying to arrange admission for surgery, which the patient had already received. The issue was resolved quickly and apologies were given to the GP and the patient involved.
9
Enquiries received by letter
PALS received two letters from the public, one of which was forwarded to the Complaints Department, the other PALS responded to the writer by telephone.
10
Conclusion
PALS can provide a synopsis for each contact it received for the month of June 2003 but have not included them in this report, as there are 201 in total. Obviously we will provide copies to anyone who wishes to see them.
PALS continue to be stretched to the limits with the patient contacts increasing month on month at present. The majority of contacts are by phone with the wards and departments calling upon us when necessary. The new PALS leaflets are being printed and should be available for distribution at the end of August 2003 and discussions are taking place re developing St Mary’s main entrance “PALS Information” area.
As I stated at the beginning of this report we have had difficulty in coping with a three-month backlog of data and a high demand for the service. It is hoped, however, that we can now continue producing a full and comprehensive report for the future.
