Earlier in the year we undertook a survey on behalf of Healthwatch Worcestershire to find out what young people thought of their GP practice. The report has now been published and can be found on Healthwatch’s website here.

The main findings were:

• Overall the young people were happy with the service they received and felt that staff at GP practices are helpful.
• The majority of the young people go with a parent or carer to appointments (particularly 13 to 16 year olds) and although more than half said that Doctors spoke more to the person they go with than directly to them, many said they preferred this. Some said that they did not always understand what the Doctors are saying.
• Responses suggested that young people would like more appointments available in evenings and at weekends and that being able to make appointments on line or by text would be helpful.
• Most of the young people did not know how to raise a complaint about their GP practice and said that not knowing how to give feedback is the most likely thing to stop them doing so.

Findings suggest it would be helpful for GP practices to raise awareness of the ways feedback can be provided and to make use of both paper and on line surveys. In general the younger people (aged 13 – 16) seemed to prefer using text for contact, such as making appointments and giving feedback, whilst 17 – 19 year olds preferred using online methods.

The report has been shared with GPs through the County’s Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) and will be used to inform future commissioning of services.

For more information about the report or our work with Healthwatch, contact Cat Illingworth.