Enter and view: Bishop's Castle Medical Practice

Healthwatch Shropshire undertook an announced Enter and View visit to Bishop's Castle Medical Practice, on 7 November 2017, to explore the practice’s approach to delivering primary care services and any barriers they face and their compliance with the NHS Accessible Information Standard.

Healthwatch Shropshire interviewed patients, carers, and staff and also contacted the Patient Participation Group to get their input and their help in promoting the visit.

The visit concluded that, whilst the practice staff were not aware of the Accessible Information Standards (AIS) before Healthwatch Shropshire wrote to them, they had actually been applying the principles of the AIS as part of their daily business for some years. As a result, very few of the patients spoken to had experienced any issues or had concerns about the way they were given information.

One notable finding was that the practice had discovered that a hospital had not respond appropriately to the note about a particular patient's communication needs, the practice now manage that patient's communication with the hospital to ensure information is communicated correctly and in a way the patient can manage. The report highlights a number of areas of good practice and makes one recommendation with some options that the practice might consider to further enhance the patient experience.

The report was received positively by the Practice partners who found the visit very helpful in identifying areas for improvement and appreciated the positive feedback from patients.