Follow up to GP patient experience report
Download (PDF 153.04 KB)Summary of report content
In October 2016, 10 Healthwatch Bucks volunteers visited 47 individual GP surgery waiting rooms; viewed 55 GP surgery/practice websites and called 61 GP surgery/practice when they knew they were closed to hear their out of hours message. The aim of this project was to find good practice and identify opportunities for low cost improvements to the patient experience. The findings were published in a report, in February 2017, on non-clinical patient experience.
When the summary report was published, Healthwatch Bucks wrote to each GP surgery/practice with a full breakdown of the findings and provided a “Good Practice Checklist” for surgeries/practices (included in the report). They asked each surgery/practice to inform them of any actions they would be taking to improve their information. This report summarises the responses received from 26 practices.
- 15 said that they had made changes or planned to take action as a result of the findings.
- 12 noted that they would be using the good practice guide provided by HW.
- 12 said that they had involved or would be discussing the results with their Patient Participation Groups (PPGs).
- 6 disagreed with elements of the findings or the approach used.
- 15/26 practices gave more details of the changes they had made. Some of these were: Improving the telephone answering messages and increasing the amount of information available on website, making information clearer, having a new website and improving the waiting room and telephone systems. Other actions taken were also listed in the report.
Healthwatch Bucks further recommends that all practices continue to use the “Good Practice Guide” and to work with their PPGs to help identify what patients would find most helpful and convenient and where improvements can be made to the patient experience.