There were disturbing scenes at the walk in blood test service at Beckenham Beacon on 4 April. Patients were angry at the long wait – a two hour wait is now common place. Nurses, who were doing their best, felt harassed and abused. The head nurse pointed out that patients could get timed appointments by ringing a number displayed, but people said they had no idea where these places were, so didn’t use this service.
The long waits have come about because the blood test service at PRU has been closed and the demand at Beckenham Beacon and Orpington has increased dramatically. WBRA asked Bromley Clinical Commissioning Group what steps they were taking to address these problems. We also asked if more information could be given at the Beacon about the location of surgeries offering timed appointments.
We received the following reply.
During the first week of April we carried out an audit of the King’s phlebotomy clinics at Beckenham Beacon and Orpington Hospital. I wasn’t present during the incident you mentioned but I was told about it by the lead nurse and I can assure you the CCG is fully aware there continues to be pressure on the walk-in clinics and the staff working within them.
We have taken some steps since the April audit to address the situation in the short term:
· The CCG has opened discussions with the Bromley GP Alliance (who run our community phlebotomy service) about the possibility of making more appointments available to alleviate pressure on the walk-in clinics and we hope to be discussing these plans with them shortly.
· The CCG has also asked for the increased promotion and visibility of publicity materials in the walk-in clinics and GP surgeries.
· The CCG regularly promotes the community phlebotomy service to GPs through our weekly Primary Care bulletin which goes out to all practices. It is vital that GPs and practice staff recommend the community options to patients.
Additionally, there is now signage, in the life-size shape of a local GP, situated in both walk-in clinics, that provides better information about the community phlebotomy service, including location of participating surgeries. Thank you for your suggestion and for bringing this to our attention.
When King’s informed us they would be closing their walk-in clinic at the PRUH, we analysed how many people were using this service and where they were travelling from. We then commissioned extra appointments from our bookable appointment service, including two new five day a week clinics, to meet the demand created by the PRUH clinic closure and minimise the numbers using the remaining walk-in clinics.
However, despite the availability of booked appointments there has remained a high demand on walk-in clinics. In the last year the number of GP requests for a blood test has increased from over 204 000 requests in 2018 to over 215 000 requests for the same period in 2019. This is a 5.2 % increase in demand for phlebotomy in Bromley which was a higher increase than we expected.