Health Visiting Service
Summary:
A short questionnaire was devised and a total of 54 families or individuals were spoken to over the four days. The responses are mainly from mums, however some dads and grandparents did input.
The key findings are as follows:
- 65% said they found it easy to get an appointment with their GP.
- 33% said they had used BARDOC/ Out of hours service because of being unable to get a GP appointment.
- 52% were not happy with the GP appointment system.
- There was no clear preference as to whether health visitors should wear a uniform when doing home visits, although a badge to identify them was seen as important.
- The majority of those we spoke to did not know that health visitors were qualifies nurses or midwives.
- 89% said they expected health visitors to give them advice, information and support but there was a small number 11% that were unclear of their role.
- 74% said the health visiting service met their expectations.
- 83% would recommend the service to friends and family.
Conclusions:
People are generally happy with the health visiting service appreciating the efforts made by the service to respond to peoples preferred choice of home or clinic visits.
There is some lack of understanding in terms of the qualifications of health visitors and some are unsure as to their role, however this is usually answered once initial contact is made.
With regards to other services, whilst most found it easy to get GP appointments there was concerns raised over the GP appointment system as a whole.
A number of recommendations have been made following the report including the improvement of information about the health visiting service to new and expectant mothers.
Downloads
To read more about the recommendations and the full report, click on the link below:
