All together better: Patient and public findings report 2021

This evaluation was carried out with the aims of discovering and understanding patient’s experiences of those services provided by All Together Better Sunderland (ATB) partners. Across June and July 2021, Healthwatch Sunderland launched a survey to gather people’s general experiences of using their local out of hospital health and social care services and spoke to patients of some services on a one-to-one basis. A total of 525 surveys were received with an additional 47 one-to-one interviews undertaken by the Healthwatch Sunderland team.

People’s experiences with GP practices have predominantly been good. Highest levels of satisfaction were from those patients who had accessed either a nurse practitioner or a practice nurse appointment. However, the most common complaint related to people’s difficulty of getting an appointment in the first place. Many people reported that they were unable to get through on the phone. When they did get through there were very limited appointments available, especially face-to-face.

Most people were happy with pharmacy services, and there were a lot of positive comments about district nurses and community equipment services.

Over half stated that they regularly take prescribed medication. Of these patients 50% would like a full medication review and 56% would be happy to have a remote medication review either by phone or video call. Healthcare professionals trusted the most to carry out the review were GPs and hospital specialist/consultant with pharmacists shown to be trusted the least.

People reported high levels of satisfaction for the Recovery at Home service. Many people reported the service responsive and staff caring and professional.  This was believed to have helped to prevent attendance at the Emergency Department or hospital admissions

Just over a third (34%) of survey respondents didn’t feel involved in decisions made regarding their discharge from hospital. In addition, levels of satisfaction around the quality of support they received when leaving hospital was very mixed. Many of those who went straight home from hospital often reported that adequate support wasn’t in place for them and this had a negative impact on their health and overall recovery. In comparison, those who went into a care facility felt very supported and reported they felt they were making good progress due to the care they were receiving.