Access to General Practice (GP) Services in Barnsley

Introduction

General Practice (GP) Services (e.g., appointment bookings, repeat prescriptions and referrals onto hospital) have changed dramatically over the last decade.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic residents were already raising concerns with us about the lack of appointments and difficulties getting through to some GP Practices via telephone.

The arrival of Covid-19 amplified these problems and formed the basis for our survey in November/December 2021. 

Survey

We opened our survey on the 22nd November 2021 and it was live for 15 days.

The survey was promoted on social media and available for residents to complete on line, either by a link or QR code. We attended the vaccination centre at Priory Campus to complete surveys with residents and we completed a small number of surveys over the telephone.

345 residents completed our survey.

Findings

Of the 302 residents who made contact with their GP Practice via telephone 58% reported it as being difficult to get through in a timely manner, telephone lines being engaged for long periods of time and being placed in long queueing systems being the main problems.

When booking appointments 66% informed us they were able to get an appointment on their initial contact. Almost all residents received a telephone consultation as their first appointment with just over a third then going on to have a face to face appointment. The majority of these appointments were carried out by a GP.

60% of residents felt that they had been listen to by their GP Practice and were happy with the outcome although 92% of the residents who took part in the survey told us they thought there was room for improvement in the appointment booking process.

The Way Forward

We have shared the finding from our survey with Barnsley Clinical Commissioning Group and Barnsley Health Federation and it has been agreed that a meeting is to be scheduled with all interested parties to discuss the findings in further detail. The aim of the meeting will be to look at an action plan to address the opportunities for improvement where appropriate as set out in this report.