Enter and View: GP Surgeries March 2020 - Willow Practice

Report - 24 April 2020

Willow practice is located in Maswell Park Health Centre in Hounslow and shares the premises with two other GP practices. The practice is part of the NHS Hounslow Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) made up of 54 GP practices.

The practice provides primary medical services through a Personal Medical Services (PMS) contract to approximately 4,800 patients in the local community.

Background for the visit:

The Health and Social Care Act allows Healthwatch Hounslow (HWH) Enter and View Authorised Representatives to observe service delivery and speak to patients, residents, staff, relatives, friends and carers. The visit can happen if people tell us there are concerns, but equally, the visits can take place when services have a good reputation. We can therefore learn from shared examples of what they are doing well from the perspective of the people who experience the service first-hand.

Enter and View visits are not intended to specifically identify safeguarding issues. However, if safeguarding concerns arise during a visit, they are reported in accordance with the HWH Safeguarding Policy. If at any time an Authorised Representative observes a potential safeguarding concern, they will inform their lead. The lead Authorised Representative will then end the visit. In addition, if any member of staff wishes to raise a safeguarding issue about their employer, they will be directed to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and Hounslow Council’s Safeguarding Team.

On this occasion, three Enter and View Authorised Representatives attended the visit. The Authorised Representatives spoke to patients and staff. Suggestions have been made on how to improve the service and good practice has been highlighted.

HWH liaises with the CQC, Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and the Local Authority (LA) to create an Enter and View Programme, as well as the information that it collects about the 3 experiences of local people. Several health and social care providers are selected to be visited to provide a sample of different services.

Downloads

If you need this document in a different format, please email info@healthwatchhounslow.co.uk or call 020 3603 2438.

To view the report, please click on the link below:

File download
Download (PDF 1.15 MB)

You might also be interested in

Enhanced Patient Access to GP Practices in Hounslow

Patient access to GP practices has been a long standing concern for residents in Hounslow for a number of years. Issues like long waiting times on the telephone to book appointments, long waits to get an appointment, quality of telephone and online consultations, and problems around the 8am rush, have been persistent challenges.
In collaboration with ICS and Hounslow Primary Care team we identified questions and developed the survey for enhanced patient access.
We visited GP practice waiting areas over an 8-week period (August/September 2023) to talk to patients and complete surveys. Healthwatch volunteers played a vital role in this outreach work.
Find out more