Kidwelly Surgery Update

The Labour Team representing Kidwelly of Nia Griffith MP, Cllr. Ryan Thomas (the County Councillor for Kidwelly), Cllr. Mike Thomas and Cllr. Philip Thompson (both Kidwelly Town Councillors), have held a further meeting in their series of meetings with Hywel Dda’s senior management and the local practice manager about the difficulties faced by the surgery. This meeting also followed on from Lee Waters AM raising the problem of GP recruitment at the surgery in the Senedd at First Minister’s Questions.

This third meeting in the series on 19th September 2016 was attended by Nia, Ryan, Mike and Phil accompanied by Suzy Curry, (Senior Parliamentary Assistant to Nia Griffith MP) representing the Health Board was Rachel Pompa, Head of General Medicine and Anne Jenkins, the Practice Manager of Meddygfa Minafon.

Following the meeting Nia Griffith MP and Councillors Ryan Thomas, Mike Thomas and Philip Thompson released the following statement:

“We are pleased to have been able to continue what have been a series of full, frank, open and positive meetings with all present seeking to resolve the difficulties presented by the problems of GP recruitment and retention and to ensure the people of Kidwelly, Trimsaran and Ferryside get the best possible health provision.

At this meeting we discussed:

1: Recruitment: Currently, following on from the resignations of 2 GPs the surgery has 1 full time GP, (Dr. Al-Abdullah) and part time GP 1 day a week (Dr. Chumroo). The proper establishment being 5 GPs. 

We pressed for details as to steps being taken and were assured that;

(a) The Health Board is in discussions with 2 GPs who have locumed in the practice and it is hoped that appointments will be made to be in place by January 2017.
(b) The Health Board have an open advertisement for GPs and the practice is a priority in recruitment.
(c) Additionally the Health Board has committed to attending GP recruitment events in England and Wales including the large fair in Harrogate to try to attract GPs to the practice,
(d) The Health Board is looking at “portfolio” recruitment as an extra model with GPs being allowed to develop particular specialist interests as a method of making recruitment more attractive.

We were also assured that the practice was committed to maintaining a GP in Trimsaran, as often as possible and the Practice agreed to look into the provision of transport to Kidwelly when no GP was available in Trimsaran.

We were assured that vaccination targets were being met and that the meningitis letters for students had gone out to all those in the cohort and that asthma reviews were happening.

2: Current Establishment: The practice has in addition to the GPs; an advanced nurse practitioner, pharmacist, new musculoskeletal practitioner, (starting properly this week), 3 practice nurses and a new Nurse Manager starting specialist respiratory skills. The Health Board stressed that this level of support was a factor in helping recruitment to the area. We questioned whether there was any plan to use this staffing structure as a means of reducing the number of GPs employed by the practice and were assured this was not the case.

3: Locum cover: We again sought reassurance that there was no issue with the budget for locum cover and have been informed that locum cover has already been booked until January.

4: Ante Natal Clinics: Following us raising the issue of withdrawal of the ante natal clinics from Kidwelly, this has been reviewed and the current plan is to split the provision between Trimsaran and Kidwelly on alternate weeks so that residents in both areas can access the service without excessive travel. Final confirmation of this is due very shortly.

5: Telephone Triage service: The contract has been let and provides for 60 calls per day, split between Meddygfa Minafon and a surgery in Goodwick. We raised concerns as to the number of lines and what occurs if you are the 61st call. The health Authority agree that Monday, Tuesday and Friday are key days for calls and will ensure all calls are taken. We have agreed that at the next meeting the HA will provide figures of usage, so that the provision can be monitored and if necessary the contract altered.

6: Investors in Carers Initiative: we asked about progress on this and were told that the practice has been recently reviewed and confirmed at the bronze level. The practice also has a carers’ champion in place and hopes to achieve silver in the future. Carers in the community should ask about this initiative to see what support is on offer.

7: Facebook Page; the Health Authority is progressing this via their internal IT section, and are sorting out issues relating to ensuring posts from the HA are bi-lingual. It is hoped it will go live shortly. And when it does it will be the first open page in Hywel Dda. Both we and the HA were keen that this should be updated daily as a means of communicating service updates and information.

8: Patient Participation Group; a meeting will be held on 29th September 2016 at 7pm in Ferryside. Letters are going out We would encourage anyone who wants to be involved to either attend or give their details to the practice.

A series of 3 public meetings will be held in Kidwelly, Ferryside and Trimsaran on 11th and 13th October 2016 to talk about the issues and structure of the practice. (Times and venues to follow).

All parties were in agreement that the meetings were constructive and useful and will be meeting again shortly. Speaking after the meeting Nia Griffith commented “As local representatives we feet that progress has been made, but there is more to do and as a team of Labour representatives we will continue to monitor and push for improvements at all levels.”