GP ACCESS Project pilot

We partnered with Burncross Surgery and Healthwatch Sheffield and working with wellbeing workers from across the city to ask what would improve your access to GP Surgery support when you’re struggling with your mental health. Our initial pilot focused on Chapelgreen Surgery and a cross city online questionnaire. Our full report is below and can be downloaded via the button.

This infographic shares the key findings.

In the long term, we aim to bring these events to the rest of Sheffield surgeries. This pilot event will be crucial in enabling us to trial our ideas and listen to local people. We’ll feedback all the findings on this website and through other mental health platforms across the city.

why is this study important?

For people struggling with their mental health, access to support at a GP Surgery can be a challenge, yet GP Surgeries are often gatekeepers to medication, therapy and support. One challenge is making appointments, with many surgeries require you to phone at 8am to make an appointment, yet when you’re struggling with your wellbeing, this time of day can be hard. The NHS report that between 2021 and 2022 satisfaction at the appointment system declined from 71% to 56% (NHS data.) Does the appointment system create a barrier for you? What other barriers exist?

For some this feels like a game of snakes & ladders …

With opportunities for care and support but also barriers that exist that make it harder for your to get care. We’d love to hear your experiences.

Our colleague, Tammy Raines (an Expert by Experience from Re:Think Mental Health) has been doing research into key questions for some time and we’re delighted to be working with her. These include:

  • How easy or hard is it to access support at your GP Surgery if you’re struggling with your wellbeing?

  • What would improve the support you receive and what insights can you bring to help us improve things?

  • What ways can we work with staff to make access to support a better experience?

We have chosen this area of focus because a GP surgery central to a person’s mental health journey. It is the first point of call, the place of referral, where you are prescribed medication, going for check-ups. Ultimately it is your place of local connection. This therefore feels like a crucial cog in the process of making mental health support easier in the city. We want to highlight:

• Key areas of challenge both for patients and surgery staff

• Emotions and feelings about the process

• Listen to people who aren’t normally heard

• Establish what the barriers are in a surgery-based pilot.

• Seek to share these findings across the PC network.

Ultimately, we would aim to improve the experience of people struggling with mental health challenges in their engagement with GP surgeries across the city and also the experience of staff working in those surgeries.

If you want to ask any questions or find out more email us at info@spacetobreatheuk.com

This project is kindly enabled by Speak Up Grants from Healthwatch Sheffield.

WHAT WE DID …