Solihull Healthcare Partnership (SHP) update – We are listening to and championing patients’ views

We are continuing to hear feedback from SHP service users about issues accessing services, specifically telephone issues including being cut off whilst in the queue, and long waits in the queue.

From recent feedback we have seen that in general, people are actually quite pleased with the service they receive when they have access to the surgery and are seen. People are also find it relatively easy to get an appointment when they go into the surgery physically to speak to reception. However, most feedback received still includes complaints about the phone line and very long waiting times (30mins+, some people stating around an hour) or not being able to get through on the phone at all and therefore not being able to book appointments or access the surgery at all.

These are some of steps we have taken to work with SHP and ensure they are hearing patients views and striving to improve.

• We take all pieces of feedback on board, and through several processes we feedback to SHP regularly.
• We undertook a study into ‘GP Access via Technology’ and PCN’s across Solihull collectively committed to improvements which will be followed up this year.
• We attended a Monkspath Patient Group meeting and offered our support with work to improve relations between the group and SHP and their PPG.
• Following on from an exercise done by BSol CCG in May 2021 which found the average wait time from their exercise was 9 minutes and 20 seconds, we undertook our own mystery shopper exercise in June 2021 and shopper 1 had an average wait time of 24 minutes 5 seconds whilst shopper 2 had an average wait time of 17 minutes 50 seconds.
• We worked with BSol CCG on their independent review and that can be found on page 10 of this report
• We have regularly met with SHP and each time our Project Officer has fed through the main issues at that time and we have discussed those with SHP on behalf of residents, pushing for improvement.
• We have requested SHP include our details on their complaints page, giving people the option to feedback to an independent organisation.
• In October 2021 we were shown around their call centre where their care navigators are based, and we were assured that more staff had just been through training, so more care navigators were starting imminently and therefore call wait times would improve.
• After the above meeting with SHP we made agreements for our Community Engagement team to attend SHP sites regularly as part of our Community Engagement plan and speak to service users, this started before Christmas 2021.
• We have continued to work with SHP and the CCG to understand the changes and improvements being made.
• This month we met with Mr Saqib Bhatti MP for Meriden and spent time talking about the issues that are being fed into us, Saqib offered to invite us to his next meeting with a patient group.
• As always we continue to encourage residents in Solihull to have their say on any service in Solihull – you can tell us quickly here

Solihull Healthcare Partnership Said:

SHP are continuing to work with Healthwatch Solihull to gain insight from patients on the services they have experienced and listen to patient feedback. This forms a vital part of our ongoing development and improvement of our services.

Alongside welcoming Healthwatch Solihull to our surgery sites, we ensure they are kept informed with regular updates and information on our services and access, stakeholder briefings and meet them on a regular basis.We are pleased Healthwatch Solihull are also communicating with SHP Patient Participation Group, the independent voice of SHP registered patients.

For any more information please call Healthwatch Solihull on 0808 196 3912 or email enquiries@healthwatchsolihull.org.uk