Rye Listening Tour 2023

Each year Healthwatch East Sussex focuses on one area of East Sussex to engage with local people and understand their communities in more detail. In October 2023, they visited Rye and the surrounding villages to find out about their access to health and social care services.  They spoke to over 300 people.

People in Rye and rural Rother have many similar concerns to those shared with us by other East Sussex residents, primarily challenges in timely access to health and care appointments. 

They heard about people’s appreciation of positive GP experiences, with people sharing examples of good care from a range of staff at practices once they were able to access appointments. Frustrations remain about speed of access to appointments. Issues involving transport were raised by residents throughout the activity. The distances people were having to travel, poor public transport provision, the cost of transport and difficulty in accessing patient transport services were impacting people’s ability to access health and care services. 

Patients reported that services don’t appear to record, accommodate or make appropriate adjustments for those with communication requirements, with people's needs not being met and miscommunication leading to poorer health outcomes. Findings from the mystery shop of GP websites and feedback at the VCSE partner event highlighted a need for more effective signposting between health, care and VCSE services. 

Through Healthwatch activity at various care homes in the area, dentistry was raised as being a particular issue as some were unable to access services or had visiting services not returning following Covid. The opposite was the case for other services such as GPs and NHS 111 which were reported as working effectively with the care homes to provide services to patients. In particular, weekly GP visits at some of the care homes were appreciated by residents who liked the security of regular contact and consistency of attendance of the same health professionals. 

A number of areas outside of Rye, such as Camber and Icklesham, have seen local services and particularly GP provision reduced, resulting in patients having to travel further to access health care or feeling isolated within their communities. Preferences highlighted a desire for greater outreach and local delivery of services. 

People shared their positive experiences at the Conquest Hospital. Despite some having to travel to access this care, people reported hard working staff and feeling safe and supported at the Emergency Department, as inpatients and during outpatient appointments. 

A limited response to questions about social care throughout our wider engagement activity may highlight issues relating to people’s understanding of Adult Social Care and the provision available. 

Cost of living was raised as having an impact on both people’s mental and physical health, with high costs leading people to disengage with social enrichment and people avoiding accessing some aspects of health care due to costs. People who were struggling to access NHS dentistry reported avoiding accessing care due to the high cost of private services.

The report contains ten recommendations about transport and reasonable adjustments.