Towns’ medical teams share their workload

NEW details of the day-to-day running of Lochmaben and Moffat’s medical practices were shared this week. The data shared by each surgery via social media highlights the number of appointments and duties handled by the practice staff, as well as the number of appointments missed by patients throughout the month of March. At Lochmaben Medical Group, 2055 appointments were given by doctors and advanced nurse practitioners (ANP) – including four weekly visits in care home wards by the ANP.

• Additionally there were:
• 153 medical student supervised appointments
• 341 practice nurse appointments
• 519 healthcare assistant appointments
• 54 appointments by the surgery’s primary care mental health nurse
• 15 appointments with the physio
• 116 pharmacist appointments

It brings the total number of appointments in March to 3253 - and of those, 97 appointments were unattended by patients. Other duties mentioned in the data were the number of prescriptions printed and signed by a doctor at 2690; while the number of tests and letters processed by the practice totalled 7665 documents.

Meanwhile at Moffat Medical Practice, 1455 appointments were given by doctors and ANP, in addition to:

• 45 medical student supervised appointments
• 330 practice nurse appointments
• 502 healthcare assistant appointments
• 50 primary care mental health nurse appointments
• 14 appointments with the physio
• 127 pharmacist appointments

This totalled 2523 appointments in Moffat with 104 of those being no-shows. Additionally, 2255 prescriptions were printed and signed by a doctor and 3868 test results and letters were processed. A spokesperson for the both practices said: “Our workload is forever increasing, with government resources reducing. “The above demonstrates why the multi-disciplinary team in general practice has increased in recent years to include roles in addition to GPs. Without these extra roles and the appointments they support, general practice would not survive modern demand. “The above doesn’t include all the extra work our team does on a daily basis, including but not limited to referrals, admin, report writing, management of staff/practice, quality improvement, work, training/teaching of trainees and staff. “Our team will continue to work hard providing a modern medical service.”