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Report on The Bristol General Practice Solutions Website Review & Planning Meeting

21st September 1pm Academic Centre Room 1 Frenchay Hospital

Terry Paterson, Pippa Staples, Graham Rawlinson, Terry Kemple, Freya Scott & Mandy Price, Mary Welsh

Agenda to include

  • How far have we gone in achieving the original criteria (see Terry Kemple’s report below)?
  • What are the successes of the site?
  • What feedback have we had?
  • What works well?
  • What problems have been identified?
  • What needs fine tuning?
  • What changes are necessary
    • To content?
    • To process?
    • To management?

Terry Kemple’s Report 2004-2006

The original plan dates from July 2004

 A- The aims (in italics) and results (underlined) were 

  1. Make the BristolGPsolutions website the first point of contact or ‘homepage’ for educationalists and GP learners in the Bristol area. The site will be the main portal for GP education and news in Bristol with some information and a lot of sign posting. This has been achieved
  2. Make the BristolGPsolutions website and its email alerts a frequently used source of information for all GPs and GP educationalists in the Bristol area. The website is frequently used but the email alerts have not developed
  3. Provide leadership in learning. Arguably this is happening.
  4. Increase the efficiency and effectiveness of communication in the Bristol area of the deanery. Arguably this is happening
  5. Encourage a community of GPs and educationalists who actively contribute to the planning and content of the website, and influence local planning for learning. Arguably this is happening
  6. Encourage creativity and feeling of success in GPs and educationists by providing a site where they can publish their ideas, opinions, audits, innovations, and research. Published work can be referenced in their CVs and appraisal documentation. This has happened a bit, but has not been widely used
  7. Develop the BristolGPsolutions website so that it or its successor is a sustainable source of high quality information on learning. Arguably this is happening
  8. Ensure that any information on the website can be accessed by a maximum of 3 mouse clicks. This has happened.

B- The following (in italics) stated success criteria and results (underlined) were  

  1. Record requests to be added to the email alert list, the total number on email list and any requests to be removed from email list. Consider asking those who want to be removed why? Success would be to include all GP trainers and an increasing number of other subscribers.
    The email alerts have not been developed. The channelling of news from the deanery and the GP education teams has not been coordinated and developed into an email alert service.  We have sent out only one newsletter alert.
  2. Use ‘hit counter’ to website to record traffic levels. Success would be an increasing number of hits month by month, achieving roughly 1000 hits/users in May 2005. The first BristolGPsolutions website had uncertain success. It was started in Sept 2003. In May 2004 it had 577 unique users and 10,000 hits each month. Jonas Andersson provides summary website statistics each month. The last available month (July 06) show that after an initial rapid increase in users this has settled to roughly 1,500 unique users, 2-3,000 visits and 40-50,000 hits each month. There is another source of website statistics which is up to date and available online and shows which pages are the most popular http://www.bristolgpsolutions.org.uk/logs/logs.cgi. There is a wealth of information such as peak use is 11am-5pm with a smaller peak 7pm-9pm, and VTS pages and training practice pages are usually the most popular pages.
  3. Survey the emailing list users at the end of the 12m to include questions to ask if they have found the email alert useful (and ask for examples), see if they want it to continue to be on the mailing list (and why) if they want the website to continue (and why), ask for suggestions for improvements. Success would be the majority wanting the site to continue, and a list of suggested improvements. This was done but received no feedback!
  4. Ask for feedback from the Deanery on perceived impact, value for money, successes, failures, and suggested improvements. Success would be for Deanery to want to continue to fund the project (beyond 2 years) with a reasonable budget. This has not been done.
  5. Email or other feedback on the site is 5 or more per day. There is virtually no email feedback about the site
  6. Interactive learning takes place on the site. There is no information about whether this happens
  7. Deanery and VTS can offer all forms via the website. These are available via the website.
  8. The website is personalised with at least 6 named contributors and their responsibilities and associated photographs. This has been done.
  9. Other VTS ask us ‘how to do it?’ No one has asked us ‘how to do it?
  10. Local VTS, HPE and CME presentations are referenced to the website and lecture information is available on the website. The ‘whats on’ side of this has been developed but apart from research page and med chi there is no lecture information on the site.

 C- What did we know about the subject?

  1. There are more changes and challenges in general practice, including the changing deanery, new GP school, changing roles of GPs, changing workforce of GPs, MMC, need for PLP, PDPs, appraisals, revalidation, and recruitment crisis for educationalists and GPs
  2. Education for GPs locally is a busy market (see the ‘whats on’ page for the evidence) but it fragmented and not underpinned by a sound theoretical basis for assessment and learning
  3. There is no local and very little national research on learning in medicine
  4. Arguably there is poor leadership in learning both nationally and locally, exemplified by the confusion of processes and outcomes associated with learning plans, appraisals and revalidation.
  5. There is a need to simplify access to up-to-date news and knowledge about learning
  6. There have been deanery funds available to support the development and maintenance of an esolution (webpage etc). The deanery in April 2005 had plans to incorporate local websites into its website, but I have seen no further information about this plan.
  7. The BristolGPsolutions website has had some success (according to its success criteria and compared to the previous website), and appears to be unique – in that it provides one structured gateway to access most things relevant to local general practice. There is increasing local expertise in the team keeping the site up to date and developing it.
  8. Severn & Wessex Deanery after a slow start (roughly a year) have developed a useful website with increasing but not comprehensive content. The SW peninsula website is underdeveloped by comparison
  9. The place of our website in the development of local GP education team, the new GP school and the changed deanery is uncertain.
  10. There is a great deal of content on our website and mostly it is up to date. Many of the facilities currently on the website seem relatively underused.
  11. The website needs weekly maintenance to keep it relevant and up to date.
  12. The website review meeting scheduled for 2005 was cancelled, and due to time pressures not rescheduled till 2006

D- What could we actually do?

  1. Make the annual budget for this project (the maintenance & development of the website) explicit and protected for at least 3 years.
  2. Ensure that the budget includes sufficient resource to develop, maintain and renew the content of the website on a regular and continuing basis. If budget is insufficient then make a new plan.
  3. Ensure administrative support. A named person who will receive emails about the site, field questions to the relevant staff to answer and coordinate the updating of the site.
  4. Ensure there is an educational lead for developing the site. Currently TK is employed for one session/week.
  5. Relaunch BLAG Bristol learning alerts in General Practice in October 2006. This is an email alert/newsletter sent on a regular basis (monthly or seasonally as necessary) to a mailing list of those interested in learning. ‘To keep your learning up-to-date  in just a few minutes’. The audience is likely to be GP educationalists, Trainers, registrars and anyone else who requests the alert. It is a free service resourced by the deanery.
  6. Use BLAG as the preferred method of contact with trainers etc, i.e. there is no other routine emailing/post mailing to the trainers.
  7. Model the email alerts and web page on http://www.globalfamilydoctor.com/JournalAlerts2004/Mar.htm#31
  8. Add additional pages to the BristolGPSolutions web site to reflect the different area of interest.
  9. Widen educationalist involvement and interest by recruiting journal, book and conference reviewers of the academic learning education and training journals, books and conferences to provide a summary after each issue, or event and provide links from the web page
  10. Make each part of the website the responsibility of a named person with their name & photo attached to their part of the site.
  11. Removed underused  parts of the website
  12. Concentrate on developing the successful parts of the site
  13. Continue to be innovative
  14. Arrange early access to new books for the reviewers. These books can then be added to VTS library.
  15. Conference reports egg Trainers conference. Arrange that main outcomes of good processes in conferences are reported. Delegate or support local educationalist to attend national and international conferences and report back
  16. Ensure that this report & review work is accredited for appraisals, revalidation or reaccreditataion as educationalist.
  17. Develop the concept of an educationalist career by providing information about the different options, demystify what it is to be a GP teacher, lecturer, Trainer, tutor, adviser, dean, international teacher
  18. Trawl the experience of GPs and educationalist for contributions to the Frequently unanswered question in General Practice section, FUQ GP.
  19. Provide a lively forum for ediscussion for educationists.

E- How can we continue this cycle of action, question and feedback?

  1. During the 12m learn from and respond to comments from contributors and users of the website
  2. Review the site at the end of 12months and write a new CQI plan by 30/9/07

F- Terry Kemple’s opinions and suggestions for the future.

  1. My belief is that an up to date comprehensive website serves a useful purpose for the local GP education team and the GP community by making access easy to important information.
  2. We have established a unique website, recognizably different from other websites that is regularly used by 1500 users, which has a lot of content and links, is easy to use and up to date, but flexible in that it is easy to change the squares and content. The website is an important tool for promoting educational leadership locally.
  3. I don’t think we can rely on others to provide this website service for us because the impending organisational changes make our links with other organizations uncertain.
  4. I feel we should continue the current website design until all the organization changes have become settled. In the meantime the website can be rebadged and accommodate changes in the deanery, the GP school and still be a reliable easy to use website
  5. Some of the underused squares can (when the need arises) be changed to provide new access to other services (e.g. Somerset and Gloucester VTS)
  6. The ‘whats on’ page can be developed as a local listings service to increase the usefulness of the site to providers of education and GP learners. We have an archive of all the known providers in the past year and we can publicize the service to providers to try to better coordinate the provision of education and gradually improve the quality and quantity of education
  7. If the website continues and we are resourced appropriately it may be more efficient and effective to enable one of our administrative staff to make changes to the website directly, rather than route everything through Jonas. It may be more efficient and effective to enable one of our administrative staff to administer the site rather than TK
  8. The website will continue to need someone to coordinate and develop it rather than just administer it (not necessarily TK).

The discussion concluded that

  • Maintain the independence of the site (i.e. separate from deanery site)
  • Site design- move quick links to the left and add most used pages to quick links. Move the most used squares to the top left of the board, reconsider how columns and colours are organised to improve ease of access
  • Add interactivity to educational sites like CPD by adding pre and post course information pages, so that course participants can log their learning needs or questions and follow up what happens after the course
  • Explore on line payments for courses with pay pal etc
  • Update trainers and training practice profiles, which are not available on the new deanery website and are out of date
  • Improve visibility of site - ways to make the site a must and a want to visit
  • Explore raising the sites profile with the practice manager’s forum
  • Explore income generating potential to increase sustainability of the site e.g. after the ‘whats on’ page is developed and widely used, charge small amounts to advertisers for the service
  • Administrator time needed - need to decide what type of person needed in the longer term to run the site.
  • There is some inefficiency in updating the site, need to explore ways to allow contributors to update site directly and quickly
  • Make sure trainer workshops have sent their current membership to Mandy Hall and list and outline of their educational activities for 2006-7.

Next review June 2007

 

If you have any suggestions about how we can improve this section email them to contact@bristolgpsolutions.org.uk


Terry Kemple is responsible for this page. It was last updated  and will be reviewed by 1/10/07.