Dr Shane Gordon - PBC Lead and GP Principal

“My patients are now much more confident about self-managing their health conditions and knowing how and when to access healthcare services.”

I first heard about the Expert Patients Programme Community Interest Company (EPP CIC) about three years ago and was really interested in how this might help my patients. I knew that most ‘care’ is actually self-care, and that maximising patients ability to manage their own conditions is a very efficient way to improve health.

Since then we have been fortunate to have four EPP CIC courses run in our local village.

The feedback I have had from those who attended has been very positive. My patients are now much more confident about self-managing their health conditions and knowing how and when to access healthcare services.

One of my patients who attended a course was an 80 year old lady who has COPD and heart failure; both these conditions can sound intimidating and provoke a lot of anxiety in patients. After she attended the course, she came into the surgery and thanked me for telling her about it. She felt much more relaxed compared to how anxious she had been about her conditions beforehand. She was happy and confident in her own ability to manage the conditions better herself. The course had made those conditions less daunting for her and she said she knew more about herself and her conditions than she had ever done before.

In a three month period after starting the courses, A&E attendances from our practice reduced significantly as did the number of people accessing out of hours GP services. Obviously this is due to a number of factors but I do think that EPP CIC has played a part as the people we targeted are the people who used those services.

For our surgery, EPP CIC has been a valuable opportunity for people living with long-term health conditions to learn more about how they can manage their condition better themselves and not rely so heavily on healthcare services. EPP CIC have been great to work with and I heartily recommend them to every surgery and PBC cluster.
 

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