Patient views about Woodingdean Medical Practice

Methodology 

Conducted between July and August 2024, our research consists of a survey of 1,129 patients who are currently registered with Woodingdean Medical Centre (A 19.9% response rate).

Key findings 

• The practice had recently made some changes, such as adding content to their website informing people of the services available. Less than one half of patients were aware of the majority of changes. 
• Awareness of these changes were low for booking appointments with a Social Prescriber First Contact Practitioner, or Clinical Pharmacist (15.6% aware), and also Enhanced Access appointments (14.2% aware).
• The exceptions were awareness about seeking help from other NHS services (60.5% were aware) and that it is possible to book an appointment with a different health professional depending on the issue (73.8% were aware). 
• The survey asked about people’s perceived ability to manage their health and care needs. There was high knowledge for how to use the NHS App - 73.6%.
• However, fewer people knew: 
  
  • where to find the tips ‘to make the most of your appointment’ published on the WMC website (9.4% knew), 
  • how to use the e-Consult function on the website (14.6% knew), 
  • how to subscribe to ‘Practice news’ via email (15.6% knew)
  • and how to raise a comment about WMC (16.5% knew).
• There was only a 10-percentage point difference between whether people favoured more advance appointments or more on the same day. People from ethnic minorities were more likely to prefer available on the day appointments (51.7%) compared to 42.6% of White-British people.
• People showed preference for phone appointments (63.5%) and to extend the period of appointments bookable in advance from 2 to 4 weeks (59.8%). 45.6% wanted more service updates from the Practice keeping them informed about the changes that may help them access care more easily and 38.4% were interested in video appointments.

• Men, ethnic minorities, LGBT and younger people were particularly interested in phone appointments.  People who were LGBT showed the strongest preference, independent on the other factors such as gender and ethnicity.
• E-Consult is rarely used (70.7% had never used it). Older people were least likely to have used it (47.9% of 45-64 year olds had never used e-Consult, compared to 15.7% of 25-44 years olds). 
• People with disabilities found e-Consult more difficult to use - 39.6% of those with disabilities found it ‘difficult’ or ‘very difficult’ to use compared to 26.6% of those without a disability. 
• However, once people are able to make an appointment at WMC, people showed that the quality of care is generally excellent. 
• Between 72.5% and 82.2% rated the care as ‘Good’ or ‘Very good’ in terms of Listening to you (82.2% ‘Good’ or ‘Very good’), Treating you with care and concern (81.3%), Giving you enough time (78.8%), Explaining tests and treatments (76.2%), Involving you in decisions about your care (73.3%), Having access to relevant medical information about you (72.9%) and Addressing your needs or making plans to do so (72.5%). Only between 6% and 8% noted any aspects of the care as ‘Very poor’ or ‘Poor’.

Recommendations at a glance 

Our recommendations to Woodingdean Medical Practice include:

• Increase patient awareness about the new initiatives and information available at WMC. We suggest a review of the WMC website may help with this. 
• Increase people’s ability to help with their health and care, including how to navigate the WMC website and use e-Consult.
• Raise the awareness of the PPG and its role to patients.
• Although acknowledged as a voluntary role, try to broaden the demographic profile of the PPG, by including more men, more ethnic minority representation and younger people. 
• Repeat the question about whether making an appointment has become easier or more difficult in the previous 6 months, using this survey’s question as a baseline. This would also help to see whether those populations of White-British, those with disabilities and younger people no longer experience the greater difficulties in accessing appointments.
• Offer appointments both in advance and on the same day.
• Offer more phone and video appointments.
• Raise awareness of e-Consult and have this open on the website for longer.