Healthwatch Tameside - GP Experience Report
Healthwatch Tameside, the independent consumer champion for health and social care in Tameside, publishes its GP Experience Report. Our role is to gather information from residents about their experiences of health and social care services and share this feedback with commissioners and providers to influence change.
As part of our statutory requirements, Healthwatch Tameside must enable and encourage local people to share their voice, in order to influence the delivery and design of local services. Healthwatch Tameside were receiving feedback from people struggling to see their GP, specifically that people were finding it difficult to use online services to book appointments. To gain further insight on this issue, and to understand if this was a recurring issue across Tameside, Healthwatch Tameside launched a research project in October 2023.
Healthwatch Tameside received 220 responses to the survey and the research highlighted common themes such as challenges booking appointments, accessibility of online tools and being able to see the same doctor to support continuity. The research also described areas of positive practice which included communications from practices and how grateful people are to the GPs and staff.
Healthwatch Tameside compiled the findings into a report and included a set of recommendations. The report includes a response from the commissioner, which notes the themes identified in our report align with their Primary Care Improvement Work Programme. Our research has provided specific feedback in the form of patient experiences which will be considered by Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership (Tameside) in future workstreams.
Healthwatch Tameside will follow-up with Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership (Tameside) in 12-months to see if the recommendation suggested as part of this report, have been implemented.
This report is available as a full report and also as a report summary.
