Enter and view: Deerness Park

Healthwatch Sunderland conducted an announced Enter and View visit to Deerness Park GP Practice on 15th February 2015. The visit took place in two sessions in order to get a representative sample of patients attending the Practice. It was apparent that the Enter & View team managed to gather further evidence to corroborate the initial information about the high quality care given at this Practice, which had come from a small number of service users in November and December 2014.

The Healthwatch team found that overall the results were very positive from patients about the Practice – with over 96% of patients saying the care they received was either good or excellent. Not only does the Practice actively listen to patients, they also appear to be committed to putting things in action where needed to address patient concerns.

There were, however, some issues reported around appointment systems. The Practice seemed to have a different take around appointment availability than what the patients told the Healthwatch team. This suggested that some patients may not be aware of the full range of options currently on offer around appointments.

Healthwatch made some recommendations including for further information to be made available for patients around appointments and current systems to promote their choice and range of options. It was also agreed that Deerness Park GP Practice may be useful as a model of good practice around patient engagement for other GP Practices in Sunderland. Healthwatch recommended that its commitment to public involvement and the patient voice is widely shared, along with its mechanisms of active engagement (such as website, newsletters, meetings, publication of action plans etc.).