(a)

they continued to engage with GP practices on accessibility and reported an improving picture, however, there was still room for improvement;

(b)

there were continued frustrations around booking an appointment and appointment availability;

(c)

two surveys to ascertain the public’s understanding of the triage process and access to GP services.  The survey’s highlighted that if a patient required an urgent appointment then they would be seen within 48 hours, however, if a patient required a routine appointment or wished to see the same GP for continued treatment then the wait time for an appointment continued to be high;

(d)

Healthwatch Plymouth were looking to undertake a piece of work on on-line services following similar work being undertaken at Healthwatch Torbay.  The work would explore what was being offered within GP surgeries and how Patient Participation Groups (PPGS) could be utilised more effectively in the use of on-line services.                           

(e)

some practices were visited more than once to enable Healthwatch Plymouth to build a better patient picture around the accessing of GP services;

(f)

continuity of care related to a patient accessing different services following a GP appointment and not necessarily around seeing the same GP.  Concerns were raised by patients around delays in receiving an outpatient appointment following a GP appointment;

(g)

they would like to receive more survey responses and to explore and encourage PPGs to undertake their own surveys and for Healthwatch Plymouth to feed into that process;

(h)

access to vulnerable and hard to reach groups continued to be a challenge;

(i)

the Healthwatch Plymouth website provides the option for people to select a preferred language making information accessible to all;

(j)

they were currently working on children and young people’s access to services and working with the hospital and Livewell SW on hospital discharge into a care home setting;

(k)

patients can have a conversation with a GP without the need to visit the surgery, however, a significant amount of the population do not want to disclose their personal information to a health advisor, whereas others like that approach.  The triage system stills needs time to embed and the GP community as a whole need a real solid discussion on how to best achieve this;

(l)

We will look to repeat this survey next year during the summer, we do undertake a review of the questions but will maintain consistency for trends, access to minority groups would be a priority within the next survey and how the survey would be delivered;

(m)

capacity issues within the team hasn’t allowed us to feedback to GP surgeries on results from the survey, this was something they were working on;

(n)

a patient should be informed when making an appointment that they were seeing a nurse practitioner rather than a GP.  Feedback from patients that had seen a nurse practitioner rather than an GP had been positive;

(o)

quarterly visits to the Emergency Department (ED) were undertaken to ascertain why people had attended ED.   The reasons given included; referred by NHS II1 or GP, self-referred with a small number unable to get an appointment with their GP;

(p)

following a survey they pull together the information into a report to  share back with surgeries.  Surgeries receive individual feedback and an email sent to the Practice Manager with the opportunity to discuss further.