Enter and view: Chessington Park Surgery

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

Healthwatch Kingston upon Thames visited Chessington Park Surgery, on 26/03/15.

The summary of findings highlighted areas in relation to patient feedback, staff feedback and observation. Overall patients felt they could book an appointment easily when they wanted one, but it was commented that patients find the busy phone line is a barrier to booking appointments in the mornings. The majority of patients surveyed said they could get an appointment with their preferred GP or Nurse; patients commented that this does not seem to be a problem for the surgery to arrange. The majority of patients felt they did not have to wait an unreasonable time before being called into their appointment. The majority of patients said they felt their time with their GP or Nurse was adequate for their needs. It was commented by a patient that they didn’t feel rushed during the appointment, and that there is time to talk about their concerns more in depth with the Doctor. Nearly 3 quarters of the patients surveyed said their GP had not told them about a community support service. 77% of patients surveyed graded the amount of information available as being average or below, with 39% grading it as poor. When grading the different elements of patient experience from 1 to 5, patients graded Chessington Park Surgery overall as good. The information room within the waiting area is an asset to the Merritt Medical Centre, however it was observed that the display of information materials made it difficult to use for this purpose, there were a wide range of information leaflets but they were not organised, the tables had information also but this was untidy, it was felt this is a missed opportunity as it seems to be off-putting for patients. These observations are backed up by patients comments received in the surveys and the grading of the information available as being poor.

The main recommendations informed themes around information providing and the recruitment of volunteers.