PML SERVICES

PML is a not-for-profit healthcare provider delivering NHS primary healthcare contracts in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire. We are run by local GPs for local patients, and we have nearly 20 years of success in delivering high quality NHS primary care services. We believe that local care providers, who know and understand the health needs of their own patients, and who are used to working collaboratively in their region, can provide the best quality and most cost-effective integrated primary care services. We work to develop services we know people want and need so that patients get the best care options for their circumstances.

Our services take account of patients needs and experiences to ensure that patients, their carers, relatives and staff are active parties in decision-making. Members of our staff are in direct contact with patients and their families and are expected to conduct themselves with courtesy, professionalism, integrity, openness and respect.

PML is registered with the Care Quality Commission. Read our latest Infection Control Statement here.

BANBURY CROSS HEALTH CENTRE

PML provides GP services (GMS) at Banbury Cross Health Centre which operates from South Bar House in the centre of Banbury, with a branch surgery at 58 Bridge Street, Banbury. The service has a registered population of over 40K patients. Our easily accessible locations provide a flexible range of bookable appointments and other services for patients, based on the guiding principle of ensuring that the local public can access services between 8am to 6:30 pm, five days a week, in addition to providing some services in the evenings and weekend. Alongside our large team of GPs and Nurses, we employ a number of Allied Health Professionals including Clinical Pharmacists, Physiotherapists, Mental Health Workers and Paramedics. Our new Social Prescribing team offer extra support for our more vulnerable patients.

The Practice has delivered over c70k Covid Vaccinations since the start of the pandemic.

The Practice is the largest research site in the Thames Valley region and in 2021/22 was involved in 38 studies and has recruited 1451 patients.

The Practice is rated Good in all domains by the CQC.

Find out more here: Banbury Cross Health Centre

Patient feedback

“I have been suffering from a bad back for two months, it was limiting my day to day activities. I decided to contact the GP, went on the NHS app, sent an email with my symptoms, it also asked about any other symptoms, which could be red flags. Had an email saying a clinician would be in touch before 6:30pm the following day. A phone call from the physiotherapist at the surgery, went through everything again, talked me through options including an appointment if I wanted one, sent me a comprehensive list of exercises and what to do if other symptoms appeared. A self-referral link if things don’t improve. What a great service.”

COLLABORATIVE CARE

PML provides proactive assessment and support to people with long-term conditions and their carers, promoting independence at home and preventing unplanned admission to hospital. The Collaborative Care Team (CCT) is available to patients registered with 10 GP practices in South Northants. It comprises a Nurse clinician, Assistant practitioner and Occupational Therapist and operates Monday to Friday between 8:30am and 5:00pm.

The collaborative care teams are tasked with assessing patients predominantly with long-term conditions and complex medical needs, helping and supporting them to manage their condition and prevent unplanned hospital admissions. This support includes education, referring to other agencies and supporting carers looking after these patients.

The aims of this service are to:

Reduce Non Elective Admissions and A&E attendances.
Reduction in Length of Stay in hospital beds.
Increase the number of personalised care plans.
Increase in the number of frailty assessments.
Increase the number of patients actively managed by the collaborative care team.
Provide collaborative care support.

“I was very impressed with the care and advice given.”

COMMUNITY GYNAECOLOGY SERVICE

PML is commissioned by Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group to provide a Community Gynaecology Service. The services is provided by suitably experienced GPs who are supervised by a Community Gynaecology Clinical Lead and works closely with the Oxford Universities Hospital FT Gynaecology Service.

The service takes referrals from GPs in Oxfordshire and offers telephone consultations and if required face to face appointment in Oxford City, Banbury, Didcot, Kidlington and Long Hanborough

The scope of the service covers:

Patients age 17-65 years with a Gynaecology presentation needing investigation and treatment which will include the following Tier 1 list:

Provision, fitting and monitoring of all non-contraceptive intrauterine devices (IUD and IUS), on the OCCG formulary where this is unavailable in local practices;
Management/support of post coital bleeding;
Failed cervical screening test tests;
Heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) unresponsive to initial treatment;
Inter-menstrual bleeding;
Lost coil threads investigation;
Prolapse assessment/ring pessaries fitting and monitoring;
Management of polyps.

The service plans to introduce a menopause service in the spring of 2022

PML have also been commissioned by Nene CCG to run a pilot Community Gynaecology Service in Northants commencing Spring 2022.

Click here to find out more.

Patient feedback

“The doctor I saw was fantastic, thorough, clear and knowledgeable, and gave me an explanation for an issue that several appointments at my GP and another clinic, over several years, couldn’t resolve. Wish I’d just been referred here straight away!’”

“I was really impressed, the doctor was wonderful, she explained everything and I really felt she had time and we weren’t rushed at all. It felt like a ‘private ‘consultation.’”

“The doctor and the lady who was supporting her were both lovely, friendly and made me feel very comfortable. I was given lots of information and the doctor answered all the questions I had. The appointment went as well as it could have, and I was very happy with the service I received.”

COUNSELLING SERVICES

PML provided counselling services in collaboration with Oxfordshire Health NHS Foundation Trust, this service ended in March 2024 and is now being provided by Oxford Health.

As part of Oxfordshire Talking Therapies, PML counsellors would work with people who are struggling with mental health issues and focuses on depression. They may be affected by life issues, interpersonal difficulties or loss. Counsellors would work to help reduce risk and support people to understand themselves and their situation better during a difficult time in their lives. There will often be aims for therapy, such as improving personal relationships, resolving loss issues or to enjoy life more and is delivered in a non directive way.

We offered a Counselling for Depression model which is largely a person centred approach that guides you through an emotion focussed experience that helps you to make the changes you need for a more healthy approach to life and relationships.

HOSPITAL AT HOME

PML provides rapid community assessment and intervention to people in their homes to avoid hospital admissions and facilitate discharge from hospital. The Hospital at Home team works closely with local hospitals and GP practices to facilitate early discharges by supporting patients and continuing treatments initiated in hospital, after they have returned home. The service is available to patients in the North and North East of Oxfordshire every day between 8:00am and 10:00pm.

This service provides a community based, sub-acute alternative to non-elective acute admission to hospital, including:

Rapid community assessment and intervention in the patient’s home environment to avoid acute admission where safe and appropriate to do so.
Clinical intervention to facilitate and enable timely discharge from acute admission.
Holistic care that promotes and supports individuals in maintaining their independence.
Integrated operational delivery across the sub-acute urgent care pathway to ensure high quality, safe care that minimises patient delays.

The Hospital at Home team of Registered Nurses, Emergency Practitioner and Assistant Practitioners, work closely with the patient’s own GP who provides medical oversight of the patient’s needs. Examples of the clinical issues the service addresses are:

Patients experiencing difficulty coping at home due to various illnesses.
Exacerbations of chronic diseases (including COPD, heart failure, diabetes, dementia).
Sudden onset medical illness in frail elderly.
Acute infections e.g. cellulitis or respiratory infection.
Urinary tract infections.
Care following elective surgery.
Dehydration.
Patients requiring support at the end of their life.
Post hospital discharge monitoring.

Feedback from GP Practice

Dear team,

“I just wanted to pass on a big thank you to all of you for your support and ongoing hard work in recent weeks and months. This is particularly after support for our surgery with a patient requiring IV/ sub-cut fluids. I know it is so easy to overlook everyone’s efforts, especially in the current climate and knowing things are only likely to become more trying. Your efforts, support and communication have been second-to-none and I am so grateful of that. I hope you can pass this on to all of the team from us here at the Practice.”

PCN SERVICES

PRIMARY CARE VISITING SERVICE

The Primary Care Visiting Service is made up of a team of Emergency Care clinicians working closely with GP practices and other Community Health and Social Care services. The team provide home visits to patients on behalf of their GP. This service was initially provided in North Oxfordshire and was rolled out across to the PML Federation localities in Oxfordshire during 2016.

The aim is to identify the need for early support before a patient’s condition deteriorates and they need to be admitted to hospital.

Local GP feedback about the service

“I’d just like to say a big thank you to XXXXX and indeed all the PCVS team, since other clinicians have been equally helpful in the recent past, as have the admin team.

XXXX saw a patient for me late afternoon on Tuesday 21st December. The visit request came to us late and I thought I’d missed the boat for a PCVS referral, but he squeezed her in. It’s a visit that I would otherwise have had to do much later that evening as I was in the middle of clinic which didn’t finish until very late. It turned out to be a complicated scenario which needed thought and a fair bit of sorting out.

PCVS makes a huge difference to GPs, especially in these more complex scenarios later in the day, as these are visits that somehow, we would otherwise have to shoehorn into frantic days. It is very much appreciated.”

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICES

PML is an approved provider of Community Primary Care Services commissioned by Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire County Councils.

Services are sub-contracted to the general practices where a patient is registered. PML is contracted by Oxfordshire County Council to deliver public health contracts comprising Long Acting Reversible Contraception services, NHS Health Checks and Opiate Substitution Therapy. These services are provided through a sub contractual relationship with participating GP Practices comprising the Federations within the North and North East of Oxfordshire.

In Northamptonshire PML is contracted to provide the NHS Health Check Programme.

URGENT CARE CENTRE

PML and Oxford Health FT provide an Urgent Care Centre (UCC) at the Fiennes Centre in Banbury. The service commenced on the 2 February 2022, initially operating from 8am–10:00pm, but with plans to extend to 24 hours / day, every day of the year.

The service will be GP led and provide treatment for patients with minor illness. The UCC will provide a service for ‘Walk In” patients from the Horton Hospital Emergency Department and take referrals from 111 for primary care conditions.

All our Services are rated GOOD in all domains by the Care Quality Commission.

DATA SHARING

All personal health records are held by the GP practice a patient is registered with and it is only ever accessed by authorised clinical staff.

Authorised clinicians treating patients as part of PML’s healthcare services may have computer access to the patient’s health record when they are referred by their GP. This means that clinicians can see important information about any relevant medical conditions and prescribed medication that could affect treatment decisions. These clinicians are also able to update the health record following an appointment, just as it would be if a patient was visiting their own GP practice.

All clinicians accessing health records use the same computer systems as GP practices, with the same levels of security and confidentiality. Patients are reminded that their data is shared when they are referred by their own GP practice and, if they have concerns about data sharing and do not want their personal health record shared, these patients can be offered an appointment with a clinician at their own GP practice instead.

You can find out more about data sharing here.

COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE

Comments, complaints and compliments

We welcome comments, complaints and compliments and look upon them as an opportunity to learn, adapt, improve and provide better services. We support the concept that most complaints, if dealt with early, openly and honestly can be sorted out at a local level and we do our best to ensure that the complaints process works as smoothly as possible.

If you have a concern about your care or treatment, or about any of our services, please talk to the member of staff who is with you at the time. They will be as helpful as possible and will try to resolve your concerns.

If this is not possible, please contact your GP practice.

If you would like to make a complaint, please do so as quickly as possible, preferably in writing. Most issues can be resolved quickly but some do take a little longer for an investigation to be carried out and if this is the case, we will let you know if we think there might be a delay. Please provide us with your contact details so that we can telephone you if we think a conversation would help the process along.

When we have concluded our investigations, we will write to you formally and let you know if we have put in place any actions or improvements as a result of your complaint.

We also like to hear from you when we do things well, so that we can pass your accolades on to the staff who have helped you.

You can see our Complaints procedure here: Download PDF

Easy Read Complaints procedure here: Download PDF

If you would like to escalate a complaint, you can refer it to the independent Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman at:

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, Millbank Tower, Millbank, London, SW1P 4QP

More information can be found on the Ombudsman’s website here.