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Your feedback May 2025

Your feedback May 2025

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Your NHS and social care feedback for May 2025

Top issues

You told us that long distances to travel to audiology and radiology appointments in hospitals were an issue. There was also feedback around difficulty getting a face-to-face GP appointment and issues with the online booking systems. Half of the feedback about GP services praised the good service patients received by staff.

This month’s focus

We took our Here to Hear drop-ins to place in Ashington, Hexham, Bedlington, Hadston, and Morpeth, plus we were at the Bell View wellbeing event in Belford.
We completed an Enter and View visit to Hartford Court Care Home, and held focus groups in Hexham and Alnwick on audiology services.
Our online session from Parkinson’s UK had 18 attendees who really enjoyed the talk.
The Persistent Physical Symptoms project has been re-establishing contact with groups in Ashington, Blyth, and Newbiggin-by-the-sea to recruit research participants.
We asked for experiences of applying for or renewing a Blue Badge and heard that the process is lengthy and slow.

Positive feedback example

A person told us that they are happy with the care they received at their GP surgery, with a sensible booking process, being guided to ring on a Monday for non-urgent medical appointments available that week (although they did say that patients do have to ring early).

Having not needed to see a GP in over ten years, the person said they were pleased to be offered full blood testing, finding it reassuring that they were taken seriously. They were also pleased to be offered a wellness check for added reassurance.

Castle Morpeth resident

Negative feedback example

“This was a Blue Badge renewal but I had to give all the information again including ID, doctor’s original letters of my conditions etc. – why?? As it was a renewal I was expecting a simple form i.e. giving any changes to my conditions.

It’s a very long-winded procedure, photocopying everything a second time. I sent it well in advance but they came back with more questions last month. I had thought I’d been turned down and was getting anxious but I’ve just heard they will renew it. I know they advised of a large number of applications and a backlog but surely renewals should be much easier for all concerned.”

Ashington and Blyth resident

Impact

Our team produced a simplified version of a Volunteer Agreement handbook for Thriving Together, to be shared with users of the new volunteering management system including Healthwatch Northumberland and other local organisations and services. ”Many thanks to the team for updating the Volunteer Handbook to an easier read version.”

Thriving Together Project Manager

Information and Signposting Service

We helped people find information on a number services including patient transport, talking therapies, social prescribing, hearing loss and mental health.

Read more in our feedback summary for May 2025

Feedback from August 2024

Feedback from August 2024

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Health and social care feedback August 2024

We heard from 148 this month. Hospitals and GP services were the services we heard the most about. The quality of care or service received in hospitals was a concern for people, and also communication issues.

Patients feeling pressured to access GP services online continues to be something we hear about. Half of the comments were received about GP services were highly complimentary about the quality of service received.

This month’s focus

As well as our usual Here to Hear sessions, we spoke to people at Magic Memories cafe in Blyth, Cramlington Warm Hub, Blyth Central Family Hub Pride event and Hexham Farmers’ Mart.

We carried out three ‘Enter and View’ visits at care homes in Hexham, Ashington and Morpeth. The findings of these visits will be published soon.

Our resource ‘How to get the most from your GP appointment’ was published this month along with our health visiting services report.

We continued to promote the Big Conversation women’s health campaign, with over 500 responses to date.

The online session was from NSPCC, giving information on the new Building Connections service to help tackle loneliness in children. See ‘Impact’ section below for more details.

Impact

At our online talk by NSPCC’s Building Connections service, a representative of Harrogate and District Foundation Trust introduced herself to the speakers and said “This is an amazing and sadly well needed service for young people so well done! I represent the NHS 0-19 Service and would like to share this
presentation with our 5-19 workforce (School Nurses). Could I share this recording with them to raise awareness and support the referrals into your service?”. NSPCC were happy to work with her.

Positive feedback

A patient told us they had recently attended their local Urgent Care Centre.

They reported “I attended at 9.00am and was seen by a nurse by 9.10am. I was very well looked after. The nurse established the situation and organised for me to be seen by a doctor who attended within minutes.
“They gave me a thorough examination, identified the situation and provided advice and medication. I left the centre at 9.25am feeling a lot better. The staff were great: caring, warm and professional – a very good example of excellence. Thank you.”

Negative feedback

A patient reported witnessing an elderly man in their GP surgery experiencing breathlessness and dizziness, trying to make an appointment to see a GP. The receptionist asked if he had a smartphone and told him to use the NHS App to book his appointment. The man said he had a phone but didn’t know if it was a smartphone. Another receptionist asked to see the man’s phone and said ‘yes, it’s capable’. When the man told them that he didn’t know how to use the App, the receptionist suggested he asked a family member or friend to help him.

Service providers and number of enquiries

Royal Victoria Infirmary – 6
Newcastle Hospitals – audiology – 4
Valens Medical Group – 3
Burn Brae Medical Group – 3
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust – 2
Alnwick Medical Group – 2
Railway Medical Group – 2
Greystoke Surgery – 2
Hexham General Hospital – 2
Adult Social Care – 2

Download our August 2024 summary as a pdf

 

Your feedback July 2024

Your feedback July 2024

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The services you gave us feedback about the most this month were hospitals and GP services. Access to hospitals was the main concern, specifically the length of time patients had to wait to get an appointment, followed by communication issues. Feedback around GP services was to do with people feeling pressured to go online to make an appointment or access other services, and poor service generally.

This month’s focus

Our Here to Hear drop-in sessions took place in Alnwick, Morpeth, Hexham, Prudhoe, Bedlington, and Ashington. We also attended the SeaFit event for fishermen in Amble, a North Northumberland Autistic Society support group in Chatton, and Choppington Disability Group’s coffee morning.

Due to high demand an extra 2500 copies of our cost of living booklet were printed and distributed across the county. Plans to produce this resource in six other languages and in easy read are underway.

The Big Conversation launched this month. This is a joint initiative between local Healthwatch and the NHS in the North East and Cumbria, and aims to better understand experiences of women’s health and healthcare.

Our online talk was from Northumberland Joint Musculoskeletal and Pain Service (JMAPS).

Read more in our short report

What you told us: June 2024

What you told us: June 2024

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This month we continued to hear about communication issues and poor quality of care at hospitals in the region. There were also several positive comments about the quality of care received from GP surgeries.

We raised with a primary care group that a link on its website wasn’t working. The practice manager replied to say that they had fixed the link and thanked us for letting them know. Patients were now able to access the information in the weblink.

Negative feedback

A woman told us about the problems she and her husband had with the Anima system at their GP. They have to use Anima to book appointments and patients are actively discouraged from ringing the surgery. They say Anima is not intuitive – when the email is received about the appointment, the only option to reply is ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Husband wrote “I would like to see someone in person about this” and got a reply saying, “You have cancelled this appointment”. Husband now chooses to go to A&E for assistance as says it’s quicker than waiting two to three weeks for a GP appointment. (Castle Morpeth resident)

Positive feedback

A gentleman contacted us and said that he has experienced very good care at his GP surgery. He needs regular repeat prescriptions and likes that fact that he can walk straight in, fill in a repeat prescription form at the desk, hand it in, then walk just two minutes down the road to the pharmacy. On one occasion he fell over at home and went straight to his GP surgery expecting to be told he’d have to book an appointment. They asked him to take a seat and he was seen by a GP within 20 minutes. He likes knowing that he can drop-in in this way if he needs to and won’t be turned away. (Cramlington, Bedlington and Seaton Valley resident)

You can read more in our short feedback report for June 2024

Your feedback March 2024

Your feedback March 2024

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Health and social care feedback Northumberland March 2024

In March the top issues we heard about were difficulties getting an appointment with a GP or a dentist, and the distance to travel to hospital appointments. Like the previous month we had a lot of positive comments about the quality of care received in hospitals. For the first time since we started providing these monthly reports, we also had a handful of positive comments about getting an appointment at a GP surgery in a reasonable timescale

What did we get up to?

We held our Here to Hear drop-in sessions in Bedlington, Alnwick and Morpeth and also attended the Prudhoe Health and Wellbeing event, Northumberland Parent Carers’ Forum Annual Conference, Vision Northumberland’s technology event and the Locality Coordinator’s event at Dalton Village Hall. Our online talk was delivered by Harrogate and District Foundation Trust on the Growing Healthy Northumberland 0-19 service.

Find out more in our March 2024 feedback report

January 2024 feedback

January 2024 feedback

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Health and social care feedback Northumberland January 2024

Difficulties getting a GP appointment featured the most in this month’s feedback, although there was a notable number of comments praising the service patients had received from their GP. The distance to travel was raised as a concern around hospitals but again, there was a sizeable number of positive comments praising the quality of care received in hospital. The third most common issue raised was accessing NHS dentists, with complaints around getting an appointment being the most common.
What did we get up to?

January got off to a busy start with many one-off sessions in the community, over and above our regular Here to Hear sessions. These helped us to gather feedback about Health Visiting Services. This a major piece of work looking into what’s working well and not so well in order to feedback to the NHS.

We analysed what we heard from service users about experiences of getting dentistry work completed, which is our contribution to research into the state of dentistry across the whole of the North East and North Cumbria. This is a joint project with the other Local Healthwatch in the region.

We launched a recruitment campaign for board members and volunteers to join our team. If you are interested in volunteering with us find out more on our volunteering page.

Find out more in our January 2024 feedback report.

December 2023 feedback

December 2023 feedback

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Health and social care feedback Northumberland December 2023

This month we received an equal number of positive and negative comments about the quality of GP services. Where people had a less happy experience, this was mainly difficulty getting an appointment or about poor service. People are still finding it very difficult to get an appointment with an NHS dentist, including having to travel outside of the area.

What did we get up to?

We attended our usual Here to Hear drop-in sessions and also a one-off session at Cramlington Hub. As part of our work on health visiting services, we went to Wentworth Leisure Centre to speak to parents and carers about their experiences. We also attended Northumberland County Council’s Family Hubs sessions in Alnwick, Blyth, Berwick and Hadston as part of this work.

The online session in December was from the NECA team who spoke about gambling awareness and support in the region.

Our new cost of living information booklet was distributed to organisations, venues and groups across the county. The booklet is a free resource which we have produced as part of our Signposting and Information Service.

Find out more in our December 2023 feedback report.

What you told us: November 2023

What you told us: November 2023

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Health and social care feedback Northumberland November 2023

  • In November the main things you told us about were:
    GP services: Difficulty getting an appointment was again the top concern raised this month, although approximately a fifth of the feedback we received praised the quality of care from GP practices.
  • Dentists: Difficulty getting an appointment featured strongly again this month.
  • Hospitals (outpatients’ appointments): Long waiting times and the distance needing to travel to get to appointments were raised. There was also a fair proportion of positive comments around the quality of care received.
What did we get up to?

This month we were at a number of one-off events including Seghill Food Hub, Ponteland and Blyth Winter Warmer events, Prudhoe wellbeing event, Haltwhistle diabetes awareness event and the Forget-me-nots Christmas drop-in.

We also held an IT special event in Blyth with staff from Marine Medical Group to show patients how to use eConsult, help them register for GP online services and download the NHS app.

The online talk this month was from Stroke Association and it was well received by the members of the public and health professionals who attended.

We also started on a joint project with all the local Healthwatch in the North East and North Cumbria reviewing the state of NHS dentistry in the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board area.

Find out more in our November 2023 feedback report

What you told us: October 2023

What you told us: October 2023

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Health and social care feedback Northumberland October 2023

This month the biggest issue, apart from difficulties getting an appointment at GP practices, has been poor communication by services. This is around prescriptions in particular, and the communication between patient, GP practice and pharmacy. There have also been communication issues with other services either not communicating with the patient or with each other, which has adversely affected the patient.

What did we get up to?

October was a busy month with an increased number of one-off sessions and events on top of our regular Here to Hear events. We were at Choppington Disability Group’s AGM, Blyth Wellbeing event, Silver Sunday and Mental Health Celebration event (also in Blyth), and Alnwick Garden’s Wellness event, all of which have been well attended and have enabled us to speak to many more people than usual.
Our AGM and listening event at East Bedlington Community Centre was well-attended and we received lots of positive feedback from guests.

This month’s online session on self-harm from Battle Scars was very popular, with our highest ever attendance since we began these sessions.

We ran an online campaign asking people to tell us what they think about their local pharmacy which generated a lot of feedback, almost exclusively positive, with many glowing references to Allendale
Pharmacy. This meant that for the first time since we started the monthly reports in July 2022, we received more positive feedback than negative.

Find out more in our October 2023 feedback report

What you told us: September 2023

What you told us: September 2023

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Health and social care feedback Northumberland September 2023

This month we heard from 268 people about health and social care services; either as a service user, or a carer or family member. The main issues were around getting a GP appointment and getting through to the surgery on the telephone. We did however hear a lot of praise for the quality of care once seen by healthcare professionals at the surgery.

We also heard that some people are not receiving all of their prescription medication from the pharmacy, where there are issues with supply. The third main area we had feedback on was mental health services, and how getting an appointment can be difficult, and communication could be better.

What did we get up to?

As well as our regular Here to Hear drop-ins in East Bedlington, Blyth, Morpeth, Prudhoe and Alnwick, we were out and about hearing from people at other events including a SeaFit event in Amble with the Fishermen’s Mission, Northumbria Cancer Patient and Carer Group’s Health and Wellbeing event in Haltwhistle, Queen Elizabeth High School Freshers’ Fair in Hexham and a drop-in session in Newbiggin.

Find out more in our September 2023 feedback report