MINI CASE STUDY: Ashley Surgery

PRACTICE: Ashley Surgery
COUNTY: Shropshire
Ashley Surgery delivers medical care to its 4,182 registered patients. Located in the village of Ashley in Shropshire, the practice recently expanded its surgery to increase the efficiency of its day-to-day operations, and keep up with the influx of patients.

• The surgery is staffed with doctors, nurses and a variety of other healthcare professionals, who provide a full range of medical services.​

• The equipment that was currently being used within the surgery was starting to perform poorly, which was beginning to impact both patients and employees – in terms of prescription turnaround and staff productivity
• One of the two printers wasn’t responding to computer print requests, which meant that staff constantly faced printing backlogs and time-consuming workarounds
• The printer would frequently cut out when prescriptions were being printed, wasting staff – and patient – time
• One terminal would print scripts but wouldn’t print letters. Essentially, Ashley Surgery didn’t have a robust device that could keep up with the surgery’s printing demands.

• The surgery has installed an Epson WF M5299 printer, following a recommendation from a colleague
• The surgery has been impressed with the speed of the printer, which has enabled staff to produce patient prescriptions and letters far more quickly and efficiently
• The printer is networked properly, meaning staff now don’t have log-on issues
• The staff at Ashley Surgery find the print quality of the new set-up excellent – and a marked improvement on the surgery’s former devices
• In terms of product performance, no user intervention has been required since implementation in September, in terms of jams or faults
• Due to the huge, 40,000-page-capacity cartridge, no change of consumables has been required in the last three months – and the printers will run for many more months without new cartridges
• The printer has no drum, meaning fewer consumables – thus reducing printer issues and downtime; interruption to clinical staff; and staff frustration.