Good Quality GP Services

Executive Summary

Background
Healthwatch St Helens set up the ‘Good Quality GP Services’ task group in February 2015. We wanted to find out what ‘good quality GP service’ actually means to people in St Helens. Discussions with colleagues at St Helens CCG told us that our work would enhance but not overlap what they were already doing around patient engagement.

Why should this be a priority for Healthwatch St Helens?
GP services are generally the first place a patient accesses healthcare. Feedback to both St Helens LINk and Healthwatch St Helens has shown that good quality GP services are high on the list of local people’s priorities.

In the work plan priorities consultation that Healthwatch St Helens carried out in 2014, more than half the people surveyed said Good Quality GP services was their top priority.

Consultation method

The survey was conducted from 2nd April 2015 and was originally planned to close on 19th May, with 672 responses. However, responses continued to come in until September and in total there were 730 responses from St Helens residents from online forms and completing paper questionnaires. Completed questionnaires from respondents in neighbouring boroughs have been anonymised and forwarded to the appropriate local Healthwatch.

The survey was sent out to all Healthwatch members, made available on the website, and distributed widely throughout voluntary and public sector partners.

Conclusion

Healthwatch St Helens felt that the number of responses to the questionnaire was significant in illustrating how important GP services are to the people of St Helens. The same consultation methods were used as with previous questionnaires but the number of responses was significantly higher.
Clear patterns have emerged through the comments made which reflect many of the issues that are raised with us regularly.