Four in 10 Wolverhampton surgeries refuse to take part in survey on access to city GPs

Conducted by Healthwatch Wolverhampton between May 18 and June 1 last year, the survey contacted GP practices using standard questions to check how simple it was to speak to a receptionist, book an appointment, choose telephone or face-to-face and be directed towards an appropriate service, such as a pharmacist or A&E.

It is the responsibility of Healthwatch to gather feedback from patients regarding their GP and healthcare experiences, and ensure NHS leaders and decision makers use the information to improve services.

However, out of the 56 practices in the city, 23 refused to take part – saying they were too busy, and/or did not believe that as receptionists they would have the information or authority to answer the questions. Some practices were also reluctant to divulge any information, the findings of the survey revealed.

Health scrutiny panel chair councillor Susan Roberts told this week’s meeting: “It is the legal duty of GP practices to respond to Healthwatch, and we’ve just been told that 22.7 per cent of them have refused – turned down the opportunity to talk to Healthwatch. That’s not good enough.

“I know people are sometimes very busy, but this was a five-minute survey on the phone. As a scrutiny panel, we’ve got a responsibility of making sure that we  get the true facts so that we know exactly what’s going on.

“If a patient is waiting over an hour and still hasn’t got an appointment, you can understand why people are not very happy at the moment. We’ve got to have that commitment from GP practices that they will join in with any survey that is conducted. Healthwatch are legally entitled to ask questions and practices are legally obliged to reply.”

Councillor Sohail Khan added: “For surgery staff to not understand and recognise who Healthwatch are is not acceptable. We need to increase awareness of Healthwatch and their aims. They need to have cooperation and clearly they are not getting it.

“General practices manage appointments differently. Why can’t we find a way of standardising this? What are the barriers to the standardisation of appointments across the service.?”

Paul Tulley, managing director of the Black Country Integrated Care Board (ICB) said: “Practice managers are the people we need to be targeting so they are aware of these surveys, as the people picking up the phone are the receptionists and admin staff. So we really need to be reinforcing this.”