Pinnacle launches its 13th Quality Plan on Monday and while general practices brace for more regulation, Pinnacle says it’s the most streamlined plan yet.

“We’ve been focussing on getting it as lean as we can,” says Pinnacle Group Ltd Quality Manager Hayley Lord, five days out from its launch.

Every year Pinnacle releases a Quality Plan ensuring general practices have a work plan for maintaining high quality primary health care services. The Plans and the work build on previous work to ensure that there is a continuous quality improvement approach. 

However, it adds to the frustration and exasperation for health professionals who have a sense that they are increasingly forced to choose paper work over patient work.

Earlier this year The PHOnetic voiced general practice staff concerns. While valid regulations and paperwork is needed to preserve quality and ensure proper payment, everyone the PHOnetic spoke to said over regulation is leading to job dissatisfaction and driving some out of healthcare.  Quality Plans were just one of the requirements mentioned.

This year, after listening to all the feedback, and running a face-to-face workshop  with practice representatives, Hayley Lord says the Quality Committee, Board and her team have been able to create a plan that is balanced and manageable for providers.

“We’ve tried to take on feedback about the burden of reporting and administration, and about the need for more clinical content. And in doing so, we have tried to make it [the Plan] thinner, yet still focused.”

She said the Quality Committee and the Board of Pinnacle are made up of practicing clinicians and administrators from practices. “So the plan is developed at grass roots taking into account day-to-day challenges while keeping the eye on quality.”

In the creation of QP 13 Pinnacle has:

• Incorporated targets from the PHO Performance Programme indicators so there are fewer information collection double-ups.

• Enabled some Quality Plan data to be extracted from the routine Clinical Events Export for a number of goals rather than using reporting sheets and audit reports thereby reducing the reporting burden on practices.

• Piloted an agreement with RNZCGP around the Aiming for Excellence standard to reduce the burden of cycle 2 accreditation. (There will be more information coming from Pinnacle on this).

• Removed the Professional Development goals from the plan to reduce duplication with Aiming for Excellence.

Hayley Lord said additions to the Quality Plan this year have developed as a direct result of feedback, and revolve around high need patients.

A clinical project has been added. Practices can choose between cardiovascular risk assessments and diabetes annual reviews.

“Also included as a result of feedback in the plan is a new section on workforce/workplace. This is in response to increasing queries from practices about sustainability and recruitment concerns for the future.”

Hayley Lord said the cuts, changes and improvements should be welcome news for general practice staff while still ensuring the Quality Plan remains a strong indicator of quality and safety for patients.

“The annual quality plan is an important tool for demonstrating to our communities and funders that we are quality focussed and the work we do makes a difference”.

Hayley Lord will present QP13 to General Practice teams and PHO staff on Monday 27 July at Pirates Conference Rooms, 15 Anzac St, Gisborne. A light supper will be provided.
 
Please RSVP to Robyne McKeague at robynem@pinnacle.org.nz, 863 2661 x 109. At least one practice nurse, one GP and one administration team member are encouragedto attend. 

Funding cuts announced in this year’s Budget have put an end to Work and Income’s Mild to Moderate Health Intervention contract with Turanganui Primary Health Organisation.

Referrals to the service, which supported people with mild to moderate mental health conditions to be ready for employment, have been received from Work and Income since February. 

Clients qualifying for help received a free extended consultation with a GP at no extra cost and could then be referred to Turanganui PHO primary mental health nurse Helen Love for further assessment and referral to counselling or other appropriate services.

But in May, the Government said it would no longer fund the Work and Income Health Innovation Fund programme, and as a result a number of contracted health services, including the one in Gisborne, will now cease.

Work and Income will continue to fund clients who had already started accessing the affected services before 30 June, until the natural end of their individual programmes.

As at March 2009 1,724 people nationwide had been referred to an Innovation Fund service.

Turanganui PHO’s Chief Executive Keriana Brooking said while she is disappointed, the service had been underutilized and may not have been able to continue in its present form anyway. While contracted to provide 50 consultations from October 2008, only 11 patients had been referred from February 2009.

“Yes, there were teething problems and we would have had to look at the process, but I still remain disappointed. If there was an opportunity for the service to have been covered by another pool of money, I would have been interested.”

Turanganui PHO continues to receive GP referrals to its wider primary mental health service. The bottom up approach offers assessment, treatment and support to people presenting to general practitioners with mild to moderate mental health conditions.

Patients qualifying for help are able to have a free extended consultation with a GP, and can then be referred to Turanganui PHO's Primary Mental Health Clinical Liaison Robert Armstrong. Robert is supported by fellow mental health nurse Helen Love.

New figures on uptake are due at the end of the month. As of December last year there had been 233 GP extended consultations and 107 referrals.