The Riverside Medical Practice in Musselburgh is “making steady progress” with the 17 recommendations of an external review on access and capacity at the facility.

Riverside is the largest practice in East Lothian and one of the biggest in Scotland, but in recent years has been continuously criticised by patients, who report difficulties getting in contact by phone and booking an appointment.

In April, East Lothian Health and Social Care Partnership (ELHSCP) announced an independent review to assess patient concern.

The review was designed to gather patient feedback and consider how the practice provided access, covering areas such as triaging and prioritising of patients’ needs and clinical capacity.

READ MORE: Riverside Medical Practice review: the 17 recommendations in full

After five months of research, observations, engagement, benchmarking and analysis, the final report was published in September, providing a detailed description of the steps taken by the review team, as well as 17 recommendations for RMP, ELHSCP and NHS Lothian.

The report makes several recommendations to improve care at Riverside, such as reviewing the telephone system to ensure it meets patient needs; reviewing the job title, role and working hours of staff; resuming pre-booked appointments; and reviewing its access arrangements for patients who find it difficult to access care over the telephone or online.

A GP Partner at Riverside, which is based at the Musselburgh Primary Care Centre, said that their staff team was “making steady progress” with the 17 recommendations.

The independent report stated that the practice has a comparable number of clinicians to other GP surgeries, and it was providing a comparable (and potentially higher) number of appointments.

The practice has published a month one report detailing progress made so far with the recommendations and plans to publish similar reports at the end of the month for the next five months, with the aim of keeping patients and local stakeholders informed.

“We know patients are eager to see improvements,” said Dr Richard Fairclough.

He explained: “When the report was published on 23 September we welcomed the recommendations made in it and committed to exploring and considering each one as soon as possible – while also recognising that this quality improvement activity needs to sit alongside the business-as-usual work of running a busy general practice and maintaining clinical care.

READ MORE: New permanent GP joins Riverside team

“As patients will be able to see in our month one report, we’ve made steady progress against most of the recommendations and completed a number of them.

“We assure patients and stakeholders that we’re working through all the remaining recommendations as rapidly as possible – and engaging with ELHSCP and NHS Lothian on the recommendations which can only be progressed with collaborative working between all parties.”

He said: “Some of the recommendations are not ones which can be implemented ‘on the spot’ – time is required to properly consider the changes suggested.

“Many of them are more complex than they appear on the surface, and some require discussion and agreement with other responsible partners.

“Our job as experienced healthcare professionals is to implement them in a way which prioritises the care and safety of our patients, in a way which is sustainable for our team.

“We hope that all of the recommendations will bring some improvements in patient journeys and lead to efficiencies both in terms of administration and the provision of clinical care.

READ MORE: Letter of the week: Riverside Medical Practice review was a ‘huge opportunity missed’

“We believe these improvements may be likely to be smaller in scale and have a cumulative effect rather than providing a complete and immediate solution to the mismatch between demand and capacity.”

Dr Fairclough added: “We look forward to discussing our progress with the review team three and six months after publication of their report, as agreed in the review’s scope.”

The practice’s report on progress made so far with the recommendations can be read at www.theriversi depractice.co.uk/review.

There are also reference copies available to read in the practice waiting room.