Enter and View Report: Tow Law Surgery

Recommendations

• Retaining the procedure around appointments was a priority for patients as they felt the present system was, and is, generally good and you are able to get an appropriate appointment. They valued being able to get a prompt appointment and that the doctor/patient relationship was good
• Patients at this practice valued having long standing GP’s at the surgery. There were several users who expressed that, although for some, another surgery was more local to them, they chose to remain registered at Tow Law as their experience here was much more positive here
• We were told that in terms of improvement, users were generally happy and suggested that nothing should be changed. However people said that it was “nice to have friendly people around to chat to” whilst waiting for their appointment, suggesting that there is not normally social interaction at the surgery
• There were some positive aspects observed with regard to the layout of the surgery such as a box for patient feedback, list of prescribed medicines, pictures displayed and good lighting
• However there was an overpowering amount of information and publicity displayed. Potentially better management of information may be more effective and useful to patients
• The introduction of a water machine would be welcomed and there was a lack of privacy at reception, resulting in people overhearing conversations
•  The most obvious barrier we observed was the difficulty to speak to reception staff because of the Perspex screen/talk panel, this made it difficult to have any social interaction between patients and staff and this came across in some of the comments