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Local GP Consortium gains national Pathfinder
Status
The Croydon Healthcare Consortium, one of Croydon’s two emerging GP
consortia, has been named as a national pathfinder.
This means around 130,000 residents across Croydon can now benefit from
their doctors’ proven clinical leadership, good partnership working with local
authorities, and innovative ways of engaging with patients and the local
community.
The Croydon Healthcare Consortium, which serves a culturally and
economically diverse population, are already leading the way in improving
patient access to diagnostics, treatment and care.
Dr Agnelo Fernandes BME, Parchmore Medical Centre, lead GP for the
Consortium, said “by developing local services we’ve given patients greater
choice and convenience, we’ve also avoided long waiting times, reduced
travel times, distances and costs and expensive hospital parking.
“In addition, speeded up testing, diagnosis and treatment means we can
improve the health of our patients faster which has to be good news for
everyone.
“Moving forward, we’re keen to develop the use of modern technologies and
innovative ways to improve quality of care as well as patients’ experiences.
“Working as a federation of practices, in response to feedback from patients,
we introduced a pilot scheme with mobile screening clinics at six Croydon GP
practices that meant patients could receive ultrasound and echocardiograms
as well as allowing GP’s to refer directly for MRI scans, without having to wait
for a hospital appointment. This reduced waiting times for these services from
up to three months to just 14 days and we’ve made the service more
convenient for patients by bringing it closer to their homes.”
“We will also be improving the ways we work together as professional
organisations by increasingly, conducting our business as a consortium
through technologies such as teleconferencing and video links which will
ensure we retain as much time as possible with our patients and engage as
many of our GP colleagues as possible in shaping local services.”
The consortium, made up of 22 GP practices, is keen to build on the strengths
of existing healthcare systems, and move towards a vision of ‘sustainable
healthcare’. For people living in Croydon this will mean making every penny
count for patients and delivering innovative, evidence and outcome-based
healthcare, for everyone in Croydon.
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