Parents and carers of children aged 0 - 5 years old: views of accessing children's healthcare in Sussex

Healthwatch Brighton and Hove (Healthwatch) were commissioned to speak to parents and carers, about their experience of accessing healthcare services on behalf of their child/ren aged five years and under. They aimed to connect with some lesser heard groups and worked with local VCSE partners to identify people from these groups. These included parents with a child with special educational needs (SEN) and/or disability; LGBTQ+ parents: Parents from ethnic minorities; and Fathers. Healthwatch engaged with parents and carers through a survey distributed through partners, their own mailing list and through social media. The survey was mostly quantitative closed-end questions with two open-ended questions. This achieved 117 responses. They also carried out 19 interviews.

Key findings:

• Challenges with accessing appointments: booking GP and dental appointments. 
• Lengthy waiting lists for specialist referral appointments and neurodiverse assessments. 
• Difficulties with attending services: due to having a child with special needs or feeling unwelcome or not catered for (e.g. dads, LGBTQ+ parents, or neuro-diverse families attending parent groups). 
• The importance of good customer-service of staff: GP receptionists and consultants’ secretaries, as well as healthcare staff including dentists being caring and thorough in treating children. 
• Poor quality advice: from GPs and consultants and not responding to parents’ concerns or taking their opinions into consideration. 
• Costs associated with attending appointments and parenting support groups, including travel costs. 
• Lack of available information: on parenting support groups, about emotional support etc. for new parents. 
• Lack of consideration for emotional support offered to new parents, including dads. 
• Support for emotional wellbeing either not tailored to specific need and/or not provided for long enough. 
• Lack of joined up maternity services between hospital, GP, and community services (mid-wife and health visitors).
• The lack of awareness about what The CQC do and the benefits to parents of contacting them.