Benfield Park Medical Group takes pride in the service we provide to our patients. We have high standards that we wish to maintain. It is with this in mind that we are proposing to make changes to our practice boundary.
A practice boundary is an area which mainly governs whether patients can be registered at a GP practice. Benfield Park Medical Group is looking to reduce its boundary to exclude the following areas: parts of Central Newcastle, Sandyford, Shieldfield and Jesmond.
Please see map below which shows our current boundary and the one we wish to propose.
GP practices are currently under ever increasing pressure, with more and more demands being coupled with reducing resources. We are always looking to improve the services we provide. For example, we have currently recruited more GPs and introduced a triage system to make sure patients see the right clinician at the right time.
One significant time pressure is home visits, which are done between the GPs morning and afternoon surgeries. Currently, our geographical boundaries are so big that home visits sometimes involve up to an hour of travelling time. Adjusting the boundary would reduce the distance we would need to travel for home visits and allow us to use the time in other ways. For example, in the time taken for a single visit like this, five appointments in the surgery could be provided in the same time.
The proposed adjustment would mean that some patients will fall outside the proposed boundary. The practice would continue to provide a service to existing patients who live outside the new proposed boundary unless they rely on frequent home visits, in which case we would suggest that it would be in their interest to register with a new GP nearer to home.
We would not accept new patients from outside the proposed boundary and if existing patients move outside the proposed boundary, then they would also be asked to register at another surgery.
We understand that these changes may have a significant impact on some of our patients. Before any decision is made, we would welcome any comments, both positive and negative from those who live inside and outside the proposed boundary.
We would be grateful if you would complete the below questionnaire about this potential change to our practice boundary. Feedback from this questionnaire will help us identify areas which may need improvement or re-thinking. Your opinions are invaluable.
Link to feedback form – https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=slTDN7CF9UeyIge0jXdO4_9Eoyecpr1MoTpqMtozHfVURUVKVUs5TEJaQkdVVzhCUDgzTE01UlBGWS4u