Enter & View - Limes Trees Surgery - September 2017

Healthwatch has a legal power to visit health and social care services and see them in action. This power to Enter and View services offers a way for Healthwatch to meet some of its statutory functions and allows us to identify what is working well with services and where they could be improved.

The purpose of an Enter and View visit is to collect evidence of what works well and what could be improved to make people’s experiences better. We use this evidence to make recommendations and inform changes both for individual services as well as health and social care system-wide.

Summary of findings

• People commented on the telephone triage system and generally there was positive feedback about the efficiency, however, some people had difficulty in getting through and felt there were too many ‘options’ on the menu.
• A number of people commented that there were long waits to see preferred doctors and some patients felt a lack of personal approach as they see different doctors at each visit.
• People spoke about the reception area being very busy at times and a perceived lack of staffing in this area.
• We heard from one patient who has been upset by a change in the ‘system’ regarding accessing a routine procedure.
• There is a positive relationship between the surgery and the on-site pharmacy which is greatly valued by patients.
• We didn’t hear any feedback about the Patient Participation Group which could indicate a lack of awareness and involvement.