Summary report February 2017

This report produced by Healthwatch Lincolnshire contains patient, carer and service user experiences of their health and care services for the period 1 - 28 February 2017.

A total number of 291 experiences were received by Healthwatch in February. 178 have been posted directly to the feedback centre with the

remainder of the experiences contained in this report.

Healthwatch Lincolnshire is concerned about the number of patients that have contacted us following cessation of some services that were offered by their GP Surgeries. Patients are being told these services are no longer being offered due to the fact their GP Surgery does not receive 'payment' for them eg INR (blood tests), ear syringing, Sprimoetry testing. Patients are now having to travel much further (often on a regular basis) to access these services at either hospital or another GP surgery (often much further away). With the imminent proposals for health and care services in Lincolnshire focusing on healthcare being offered much closer to home, Healthwatch believes this change in local services delivers a mixed message to the residents of Lincolnshire.

It also appears that patients are not being given sufficient notification as to when cessation of these services comes into force. The first many patients are often aware of this change is when they are trying to book an appointment for the service, only to find it is no longer available. On behalf of patients we would also ask that they are offered a much longer notification period to enable them to consider how they will access alternatives. We would also ask the CCGs and NHS England if they could consider how these services could be re-commissioned locally to ensure patients can continue to access these simple but important tests at their GP surgery.