1. Compliments, comments and complaints: encouraging feedback from your patients

    Report -

    Between December 2013 and September 2014 our Champions carried out mystery shopping in GP practices throughout Newcastle. The aim was to find out the information GP practices gave about their procedures for compliments, comments and complaints, how clear that information was and how easy it was to find.

  2. All about choice - what is NHS Choices saying about you?

    Report -

    In the early autumn of 2014 we carried out a mystery shopper exercise on the NHS Choices GP profile pages for the 35 GP practices in Newcastle upon Tyne.

  3. GP appointments: what do Newcastle patients want?

    Report -

    From July to December 2015 we carried out research into what people want when booking a GP appointment in Newcastle. A discrete choice experiment survey was developed in partnership with Northumbria University.

  4. What does urgent care mean to me?

    Report -

    Following the publication our ‘GP appointments: what do Newcastle patients want?’ report we wanted to better understand how people define the term ‘urgent’ and whether they define it differently in different circumstances.
    We collaborated with Healthwatch Gateshead to carry out a short survey with the public in our respective local authority areas during the summer and autumn of 2016.

  5. ‘People-driven care’ conference 2016

    Report -

    We presented some major research projects, including local home care services, people’s preference when making a GP appointment and young people’s attitude to dental care, inviting people to think about the next steps. Delegates also shortlisted Healthwatch Newcastle’s priorities for 2016—17.

  6. PPG forum report — February 2020

    Report -

    The report from the first forum, held in February 2020. This forum supports and develops patient participation groups (PPGs) in Newcastle and Gateshead.

  7. Newcastle Outer West PCN patient survey

    Report -

    Six GP practices in Outer West Newcastle - Denton Park Medical Group, Denton Turret Medical Group, Newburn Surgery, Parkway Medical Group, Throckley Primary Care Centre and Westerhope Medical Group - partnered with Healthwatch Newcastle to run a survey gathering patients’ views on additional services, accessing the practices and how COVID-19 affected their experience.

  8. Healthwatch Participation in Practice Award 2019-2022 interim report

    Report -

    It has been a contractual requirement for each GP practice since April 2016 to have an active and involved Patient Participation Group (PPG).

    We set out to create a best practice award for PPGs aimed to increase and improve the involvement of patients in their GP practice. Several GP practices in Newcastle and Gateshead participated in our pilot from autumn 2019 to February 2021. This interim report outlines what we did.