Enter and view: Crane Park Surgery

Healthwatch Richmond gather information on people’s experiences of health and social care services and there are times when it is appropriate for Healthwatch Richmond to see and hear for themselves how services are being delivered: these visits are called ‘Enter and View’, they are not inspections.

Healthwatch Richmond visited Crane Park Surgery on Monday October 12th.

The key findings highlighted areas in relation to patient feedback, staff feedback and observation. Crane Park Surgery was highly valued by its patients who felt that they received a personal service from the practice. Dr Sinha was clearly well respected by the patients. The Practice Nurse and receptionist were also highly valued. All of the patients that Healthwatch Richmond spoke to provided positive feedback and praise for the staff at the practice. One person told Healthwatch Richmond that “Doctors and receptionists were very helpful”, another described clinical staff as being friendly and respectful. Healthwatch Richmond received relatively little feedback about the part time doctors, who were not working on the day of our visit. Patients that Healthwatch Richmond spoke to seemed happy with the care that they received from clinicians and with the service received from non-clinical staff. The interactions that we witnessed between staff and patients were friendly and caring. Several patients who had recently switched practices compared Crane Park Surgery favourably with other practices that they had visited. Some patients had made or received personal recommendations about the practice. The practice benefits from an accessible, purpose built environment that is well appointed and appropriate for its purpose. Our visitors in the morning found that there were relatively few patients to speak with, Healthwatch Richmond were told that this was due to a number of appointments being held for emergencies. The afternoon seemed busy and there were a large number of patients and families present including a number of people for whom English was not their first language. The practice would benefit from improving communication to patients about the other services that are available to them such as out of hours care and urgent care available via NHS 111. This would reduce the demand on both the practice and on A&E.

The report contains 4 recommendations.