Views of parents of children and young people accessing local GP services heard in new survey
Background
NHS Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board (ICB) commissioned Healthwatch Hertfordshire and Healthwatch Essex to survey parents of children and young people to help the local NHS understand how they find accessing general practice services.
The results of the survey were mixed, with the majority of people finding the appointments themselves to be good, but the access to them more difficult. Parents of young children who completed the surveys often found getting appointments hard due to long waits on the phone.
Senior leaders at the ICB are starting to put into action the feedback received during the survey and the resulting recommendations from both Healthwatch organisations.
What happens now?
One recommendation in the report from Healthwatch was improvements to phone lines and this work is already underway with 95 practices having been awarded funding to support upgrading their telephone systems. This funding will increase the number of lines into a practice to reduce the answering call times and patients will hear information on where they are in the queue to be answered. It will also provide data to the practice on the time for calls to answered, number of calls received and abandoned.
Another recommendation from Healthwatch was to promote the range of ways to access services online and help build parent confidence in these channels to getting appointments for their children, as an alternative to booking by phone. A pilot has started to improve some practice websites and work will be done with patients to ensure it is clear how they can get help online, reducing the need for potentially long waits on the phone.
The ICB has recently procured a new range of online and video consultation tools. But as the report suggests, it isn’t enough to have these tools; the local NHS needs to support patients to access them. A website review will be undertaken support practices who want it, to standardise the format and content of their practice website to make information more accessible to patients. This will work alongside a communications and engagement campaign to ensure patients are brought along the journey.
The demand for appointments does put pressure on access. Patient data shows us that there were 690,000 appointments delivered in January 2023 with over 70% of these being face to face (January 2023). This was 90,000 more appointments than in January 2022.
Demand for general practice services continues to be high and there are a lot of challenges meeting the needs of all our residents. It is important for the local NHS and practices to view our services through the eyes of our patients and their carers and hear about what matters to them. This survey is just one of the many ways we are working to put the voices of patients front and centre of our work so that we can support practices to implement improvements that could benefit both patients and practice staff. We are grateful to everyone who took part in the survey and took the time to give their views.
Dr Halpin also said "Our practices have seen lots of changes over the last few years but the importance of general practice to the health of local communities remains key. They are often the first point of contact for people seeking medical advice and support. GP services remain under huge pressure and with a growing, ageing population and a national shortage of clinicians, meeting patient demand is always going to be difficult but we are committed to supporting our patients and working with them to improve services."
Our research showed that many parents and carers were struggling to access GP services for their child, or the young person they cared for. We welcome the initiatives being undertaken by the ICB to improve access and we will be monitoring these to ensure people’s concerns are addressed and local families consistently receive high-quality care.
This is just a small snapshot of the findings of the surveys.
This is the first report of a series of surveys that the ICB has commissioned Healthwatch to carry out in support of work to improve patient access to primary care.
If patients have concerns about their practice they should first contact the practice manager and read our advice here. If there are further concerns then it is worth connecting with the patient participation group to make concerns known. If you are unable to resolve your complaint with the practice, please contact NHS England as follows:
0300 311 22 33
For information about primary care services in Hertfordshire and west Essex visit:
https://hertsandwestessex.icb.nhs.uk/local-servcies/general-practice
Downloads
Read the full Report here:
