Understanding patient issues in Walsall Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC)
Many people had shared their experiences of accessing and using the Walsall Urgent Treatment Centre over the past 12 months via our 24/7 online ‘Service Feedback Centre’.
Many were seeking alternative GP appointments placing additional pressures on support service. Many of the comments left, were around patient waiting times and communication of where the patient was positioned in the waiting queue.
Whilst collating what people were saying, we also wanted to find out how big the issues of waiting times and communication were and why they were happening? We also considered possible solutions to improve the patient experience overall.
We designed a survey that could be completed by patients whilst waiting and to undertake online after their visit. We were just starting to re-engage with patients after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted but the safety of people was still a big consideration, hence this remote style of patient experience capture.
Patient visits totalling over 200 visits per day. In many cases because patients could not access appointments with their own GP. Also, GP staff referring patients to the UTC as well as a number of patients visiting from outside of the Borough.
“I took my son there after following the advice from NHS111 and was told I would have to wait 5 hours to be seen”.
What difference did this make?
During a focus group we held with a presentation by the Manager of the Urgent Treatment Centre, a patient comment was raised about the lack of cleanliness of the waiting area. This was picked up by a commissioning representative and later discussed with the Manager.
As the area was not cleaned by UTC related employees but the main hospital cleaning staff, additional cleaning schedules were put in place to address this.
We were also able to make a number of recommendations around the display of patient waiting times, patients considering alternative treatment pathways, and keeping members of their families safe.
To see/ download the full report: here
