Over the last couple of years, NHS Kent and Medway have rolled out several digital healthcare solutions to Primary Care, some in response to the Covid pandemic. These were put in place to allow GP Practices to continue to deliver healthcare to you in very difficult circumstances.
Early in 2023, we carried out a review on the use of text messaging, online consultations, and video consultations in primary care. The purpose was to understand how people use these to access care from your GP Practice and how the features and functions support you and will meet your needs over the next three years.
We ran a staff survey for people working in GP practices and a survey for people who use GP services over four to six weeks.
Staff survey
105 GP practice staff completed this survey. The feedback received focused on the following themes
- Function of a digital system – triaging patients to most appropriate person, signposting patients to other services not necessarily provided by GP Practice, system working with other clinical systems
- Equitable system – user friendly and allows patients who may not have digital access to make an appointment or see a clinician
- Training and development for staff
Patient survey
There were 400 responses to this survey. The feedback received focused on the following themes:
- Equitable system – user friendly and allows patients who may not have digital access to make an appointment or see a clinician
- Online form – reduce the number of questions and repeating questions
- Booking appointments – have the online booking system open for longer than two hours
This feedback will be used to:
- to support the current service providers and referrers to improve their services, patient pathways, experience and outcomes
- to help develop the service scope, specification, pathways, key service performance indicators and quality standards as part of a re-procurement of these services.