People's Service User Experiences - Mar 2019

This report has been produced by Healthwatch Lincolnshire (HWL) to highlight the patient, carer and service user health and care experiences shared with us for the period 1 to 31 March 2019

During this period 271 experiences are included in this report and have been shared with the relevant individual providers. 

For March we would like to highlight the following points:

• Engagement Activities - Every month Healthwatch Lincolnshire carries out engagement with the public, we do recognise that the places we visit has an impact on the information contained in this report.  During March we have visited 16 sites including:
  • GP surgeries - Billinghay Medical Practice, Lincoln; Crossroads Surgery, North Hykeham; The Harrowby Surgery, Grantham;  Washingborough Surgery, Washingborough;  Caskgate Surgery, Gainsborough
  • Day centre - Christchurch Day Centre, Stamford
  • Hospitals - Pilgrim Hospital, Boston, Lincs; Stamford Hospital, Stamford
  • Project specific activities: AgeUK Park Street Centre, Lincoln and Stroke Support Group, Navenby  – Stroke Project Engagement.
  • Other :
    • City of Lincoln Council; Sleaford Library;
    • Lincoln College, Monks Road, Lincoln, LN2 5HQ – Armed Forces Event
    • Children and Young People’s Voluntary Sector Forum Annual Event
    • Hildreds Department Store, Skegness – Volunteer Promotion

• GP Extended hours - we are aware that under the GP Five Year Forward View there is a requirement for all GP surgeries to offer extended hours, however we question how patients are being informed about these extended hours.  We have more than one instance where someone who is working and unable to attend a GP appointment during the day are clearly not aware of other options such as extended hours.
• Fragility of services – we are aware that many services at ULHT are currently very fragile due in most part to safe staffing levels.  High profile areas such as Women and Children, A & E are in the public domain and we are very aware of the issues they face,  but it is other services such as ophthalmology, stroke, sleep apnoea, dermatology, neurology, urology, oncology (waiting times) and general surgery (elective – cancelled surgery dates) that concern us as much.
• Communication - in some instances patients are being told services have changed due to the fault of 'others', whilst we recognise this may be the case, the way information is being shared with patients is not helpful and more needs to be done to signpost and support patients where changes to services mean they are no longer able to access them in the same way.
• Administration – continued issues are shared with us about lack of or confusion with patient appointments.  Either notification is not received by patients in time for them to attend appointments (resulting in a DNA) or they are sent multiple appointment dates leaving the patient confused as to which appointment to attend.  In addition, patients often comment that correspondence, notes, results of tests etc are often missing from their file when they attend appointments.
• Accessible information – patients who require information and communication in other formats do not feel they are receiving information to meet their needs eg large font, hearing support.  We continually hear from patients that this is an issue even though the Trust tell us support services are available.
• Waiting times – we hear mainly from patients that are unhappy with the lengthy delays in clinic waiting to see specialist/consultants.  Many of the patients have complex conditions and lengthy waits certainly don’t help their overall health.
• Parking Eye – the problems the Trust have faced is not only a distraction we are sure they could do without, it is one that patients and families are very unhappy about at present.  Better communication from the Trust as to what they are doing with Parking Eye to resolve the problems would help.  Also, where patients are having long waits in clinic to be seen at their appointment, we believe there should be a 'cap' to the amount of parking charges they should be expected to pay, particularly as their wait is beyond their own control.

We report all individually raised experiences directly to health and care service providers, this enables providers of Health & Care services to be aware of the comments raised about their services and respond to any specific questions raised.  Where questions have been asked of providers, Healthwatch Lincolnshire - requirement is for 20 day provider response. Where questions have been raised with service providers we have included provider responses in this report, where received.