Report by Hope and Care – 17 December 2020
The coronavirus pandemic has meant that health and social care providers have had to change the services they offer, and the way their services are delivered. We wanted to understand local residents experiences of those changes.
There is a summary of the report below. If you want to go straight to the full report you can scroll down to bottom of the article and click the link to the report.
What we did
To understand residents’ experiences Healthwatch Wokingham ran a survey between May and July 2020. We received 173 responses from people across the Borough.
The aim of the survey was to collect the views of residents in Wokingham Borough, in order to find out their experiences of changed services and whether they have been able to access the information and support they need during the pandemic.
Key findings
From the comments and experiences shared with us, it is clear that people are hugely grateful to the NHS and social care and their dedication during the pandemic to take care of people.
There were a lot of examples of where services worked well. However, there are things that can be learnt:
Information and Advice – Some people found it difficult to find information about services, service change and how to access services
Accessing Services – There were problems accessing certain services, especially dental care and phlebotomy
Video Consultation – The majority of those people who used video consultations were satisfied with the service and the majority would be happy to use it again.
Not Using NHS Services – It was a concern that some of those who didn’t use services, didn’t do so because they didn’t want to bother the services or thought their problem could wait
Mental Health Impact – Unsurprisingly, a majority of people who responded to the survey experienced an impact on their mental health to one degree or another
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