Spotlight on health at home: How easy is it for housebound people to use their GP practice, dentist, optician or pharmacy

Healthwatch Newcastle investigated how easy housebound people found using healthcare services and what their experiences were. This was conducted using a survey and a mystery shopping method. All primary care services in Newcastle that provide home visits sent surveys to patients who were coded as housebound. 77 people gave their feedback via the surveys and 56 phone calls were made to a variety of services to see how easy it was to get information about the services housebound people are entitled to and how understandable this information was.

The report found that the majority of people experienced good home visits from their GPs but many reported that it needs to be made easier to get a home visit. Only 6 out of 72 people received a home visit from their dentist and 7 of the 8 dental practices that were called said they did not provide home visits and were not able to give details of a dental practice which did. 2 out of 35 people said they received a good home visit from their optician. The opticians that were contacted gave a description of how to book a home visit and this information was easy to obtain. The majority of respondents had their medication delivered and 19 of the 21 pharmacies provided the repeat prescription delivery service and 18 could describe the services and how to set it up.

Healthwatch Newcastle made a number of recommendations including that the Local Dental Committee and Local Optical Committee explore how to communicate information about home visiting services to housebound patients; NHS England need to ensure that all dentists and opticians in Newcastle can provide details of dentists/opticians that undertake home visits; and GP practices flag patients who are always going to require home visits so that these patients do not need to explain their entitlement each time.