Sherburn Group Practice, Leeds

About Sherburn Group Practice

Sherburn Medical Practice is one of three practices making up the Tadcaster and Rural Selby Primary Care Network, now incorporated into the Humber and North Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership. The PCN provides medical services for a population of over 28,000 people living in Tadcaster and the neighbouring villages of Sherburn in Elmet, South Milford, Micklefield and Thorpe Willoughby.

Going the automated route for fridge monitoring

“We first heard about RemoteM via a flyer received by our practice manager,” explained Suzanne, “We were originally using data-loggers to monitor the temperatures in our fridges, which required significant manual effort and human intervention to record the data. In addition, the data-logger app wasn’t supported through the NHS system, and we had no way of knowing how the fridges were performing when we weren’t in attendance at the practice. We needed a better, automated solution for peace of mind.”

Running a trial

Moving away from the time-consuming manual route gave the team at Sherburn Group Practice an opportunity to automate and streamline the process. “We made the decision to run a trial first, to see how RemoteM would fit into our practices and systems,” said Suzanne. “The free trial offered by the company was extremely useful, demonstrating how we could benefit on a daily basis, and also how easy the system was to use.”

Easy to install and operate

“RemoteM was simplicity itself to install – it really is a ‘plug and play’ option,” stated Suzanne. “We had some initial concerns as we were operating from a temporary building and our new surgery had very thick stone walls, but there have been no operational issues at all. In addition, RemoteM operates completely independently from our existing NHS IT systems, so there is no requirement for additional hardware, software or intervention.”

Suzanne says that in use, the system is operating smoothly without any problems. “We experienced a power cut recently and therefore a short-term temperature breach, but thanks to RemoteM we were able to see clearly that this presented no detrimental issues for the medicines and vaccines stored in the fridges,” she explained.

Key benefits of the RemoteM fridge monitoring system

For Suzanne, that’s easy to qualify. “Ease of installation and use, significant time savings, accuracy and elimination of human error when recording temperatures, and a clear 24/7 overview of all our fridges,” she said. “For the nurses, it’s simplicity itself to log on each morning and do a quick check. It’s also a far more efficient and reliable system than data-loggers, and gives us an important safety net when the premises are closed overnight and at the weekend. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend RemoteM to other GP practices.”