Meeting the Manchester demand

This report aims to provide a review of access to Manchester’s Sexual Health Services. Access to these services is currently provided via a hub and spokes model in Manchester. The services operate as a combination of walk-in and appointment services along with the provision of home testing kits.

In April 2017 the Healthwatch Manchester board agreed to include an investigation into Manchester’s sexual health services within the organisation’s annual plan. This piece of work was identified as a priority due to the high volume of comments and complaints noted by the Healthwatch Manchester Office from local people regarding their difficulty in gaining access to the service they required.

Questionnaire surveys were used as the method of investigation. This provided an opportunity for Healthwatch Manchester to gain substantial comparative information from within a range of patient demographics. A total of 437 completed survey questionnaires were analysed to present key findings.

The summary of findings informed due to service configuration and uptake, Manchester’s sexual health hubs face different pressures in the way they are accessed. Some of these can be addressed through the analysis of the data collected in this investigation. The survey was an opportunity for Healthwatch Manchester to investigate the negative reviews on access to sexual health clinics through its feedback centre Google Reviews, NHS Choices and Patient Opinion. While a majority of people prefer attending clinics through prior appointments as opposed to walk-in service, many of those who participated in the survey were attending the clinic as walk-ins. This may be due to the difficulty patients faced while attempting to make appointments. Online sources contained wrong or out-dated information making it difficult for the individuals to make the correct appointments. There were concerns about the low level of staff in relation to the large volume of patients in the clinics and how this increased the time during which the patients waited for their appointments and service. 5The two main concerns were the difficulty in obtaining appointments and the long waiting periods; between making the appointment and the actual appointment and between arriving at the clinic and receiving the service required. There was no significant correlation between point and method of access to the sexual health services and lifestyle factors such as household income or car ownership. The age of the respondent appears to bear no relevance to the option of travelling to a service further away.

The report contains 5 recommendations in relation to access, digital, marketing and staffing levels.