Grassroots Event Feedback Form

Borough:Kingston
Organisation:The Vintage Banquet (St Peters Church) – Kingston
Key contact: Clive
Type of meeting, audience and how many attended:
  • Spoke to around 25 people
  • Staff: Jill Mulelly and Laila Awda (Healthwatch Kingston)
  • Older isolated people

Date of meeting/ conversation:
  • Thursday 14th December 2017 12pm – 3pm
  • 1:1 conversations

Planned care
South west London elective orthopaedic centre
  • Several people gave praise about the quality of care at SWLEOC. Of note, people said that the nurses were friendly and caring; their follow up worked well and their physiotherapy supported their recovery.
  • People appreciated the care at SWLEOC and that they had their follow up done more locally.

Primary Care
Access
  • The majority of people were able to get a same day appointment with their GP.
  • Of note – positive experiences were given about Canbury Medical Centre – where GPs were very responsive to patient need – including making home visits when necessary and calling people on the phone. Similar experiences were given about Farehill Medical Practice and Churchill Medical Centre.
  • Minor concerns were raised about the ‘fierce’ attitudes of the receptionists at the Churchill Practice.
  • One person felt there should be more health and wellbeing centres like Surbiton Health Centre, so that there are more services are in one place.
Better use of IT
  • One person noted that they order their prescriptions online. They have tried to see their patient record but can only see a summary of it. They would like to be able to see the full history/detail.
  • Another person noted that they try and book appointments online – but only really early ones are available.
Joined up services
  • Several people noted that patient care would be improved if services were more joined up. It was felt that an integrated IT system would help with this. People were not worried about their data being shared across health and care.
Community
Drug and alcohol services
  • A volunteer at the Wellbeing Centre gave feedback about how it was run. Concerns were raised that they don’t give emergency appointments for people at risk of relapse. People are told to buy what they need off the street and come back in 3 weeks when there is availability. It was noted that if people have to wait this long, then their relapse can be difficult to reverse. It would be better if a few appointments were held back for emergencies.
London Ambulance Service
  • One person noted that they had received excellent care from the paramedics who attended to them in the night. The ambulance staff were excellent and asked for a Dr to be present upon arrival.
Acute Services
St George’s Hospital
  • Two people reported a bad experience at St George’s. One person reported being refused heart surgery as they were a high risk person to operate on. They eventually went to a private hospital and had the quadruple bypass that they required but felt that they would have died if they took the advice from St George’s.
  • Another person reported poor treatment that they received for lymphedema.They waited 6 months for their appointment having been referred by their GP, and previously receiving a letter that the department was short staffed. They were unhappy that their appointment was only 10 minutes long and the outcome was that due to St George’s being too far for the patient to travel to they could not offer them any ongoing help suggesting help for lymphedema may be required in Kingston borough.