Any Qualified Provider Success in Bristol

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) October 25, 2011 -- In line with the relatively new initiative to commission health services under the Any Qualified Provider scheme, a Bristol GP, Dr Mike Cohen has established a clinic within his practice which offers community based gastroenterology diagnostic services. Diagnostic tests are one of the services that the Department of Health recommends commissioners look at first in relation to AQP, although Dr Cohen had a bit of a head start as his team had already reviewed endoscopy services in Bristol as part of the any willing provider scheme (as AQP was formerly known).

Dr Cohen and his colleagues spent a year assessing gastroenterology diagnostics service with the PCT and an expert patient representative. As a result they identified that any redesigned service would need to offer a clinic/outpatient service as well as diagnostic endoscopy. The result of their analysis was a community gastrointestinal service designed and developed from scratch using GPSIs, under the auspices of the PCT.

The ultimate aims of the service were to complement secondary care, relieve the pressure on hospital day-case lists, increase patient choice and reduce costs.

In order to make their vision a reality, Bristol PCT partnered with Prime Diagnostics Ltd in Essex to form a joint venture called Prime Endoscopy Bristol. Subsequently, in March 2010, work commenced on building and kitting out a brand new endoscopy unit; the team sourced the latest instruments to ensure maximum comfort for the patients, and then they recruited an experienced team to support the functioning of the unit.

Following a successful marketing campaign amongst the GPs within Bristol, in September 2010 the first patient came through the doors, and referrals have been flooding in ever since. The unit currently offers four sessions of endoscopy per week, but this will shortly be increased to five sessions per week to accommodate the increasing demand for this convenient and high quality service, and to allow for the expansion of the unit’s catchment area into South Gloucestershire.

The unit has now scoped over 1,000 patients with patient satisfaction surveys reporting that 86% of patients rated their overall experience of the community endoscopy service as either 8,9 or 10 out of 10. But the success of the unit hasn’t come about by chance; unlike independent treatment centres, an AQP contract has no guarantee of activity and all the financial risk lies with the provider of the service, so hard work, sound administration and a good reputation have all fed in to the results achieved to date.

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