The East Lothian Health & Social Care Partnership (ELHSCP) and Riverside Medical Practice welcome the review team’s interim report on the progress made against recommendations in the External review.
Joint statement by East Lothian Health and Social Care Partnership & Riverside Medical Practice
Since the report was published at the end of September our teams at ELHSCP and Riverside – alongside representatives from NHS Lothian – have been working hard to progress the recommendations made in the report as quickly as possible. We hope this will bring some improvements for our patients, whose care Riverside and ELHSCP share joint responsibility for.
A significant development has been the increase in appointments now allocated to Riverside Medical Practice patients within the ELHSCP’s managed CWIC (Care When It Counts) service. The CWIC service works with Riverside Medical Practice by offering same-day appointments with a team of nurse practitioners, advanced nurse practitioners, physician associates and GPs to assess patient’s medical and care needs.
ELHSCP acknowledges that whilst patient frustration has been directed wholly towards Riverside Medical Practice, ELHSCP also has a responsibility to Riverside patients to provide them access to primary care services. Subsequently we have taken steps to significantly increase CWIC appointment availability for Riverside patients.
ELHSCP and the CWIC team continue to work with the team at Riverside on access and ensure that the patient experience is as smooth as possible – whether care is provided by the CWIC service, another ELHSCP primary care service or the Riverside team.
Both Riverside and ELHSCP look forward to updating our patients about further progress against the recommendations by the end of March, when the review process will come to an end.
Patients can read more about the progress made against the recommendations in the monthly reports published on Riverside’s website: www.theriversidepractice.co.uk/review