‘NHS cannot continue to work this way’, says Norfolk watchdog

A Norfolk watchdog has warned that the NHS cannot continue to work as it is in a new hard-hitting report.

The report, General Practice in Norfolk: Working relationships with secondary care providers (Part two), was published by Healthwatch Norfolk, the local consumer champion for health and social care in the county. It focuses on General Practice and its working relationships with other services in Norfolk, using a qualitative approach to see what each organisations’ viewpoints and priorities are.

Healthwatch Norfolk conducted one-to-one interviews with 31 members of staff across six NHS provider organisations in Norfolk, who described a ‘mixed picture’ of the working relationships between services, leading to a few key themes common to all.

One key theme established was the ongoing issue of ineffective communication between the IT systems used by health and social care services. Staff said the different IT systems are unable to communicate with one another, resulting in a lack of access to patient information and creating problems for professionals and patients alike.

Staff also highlighted that communication with busy General Practices proved challenging, resulting in telephone messages being left and calls unreturned. Concerns about GP ‘out of hours’ services were also raised, due to a lack of patient information on who to contact out of hours.

The report also found that all services are under increasing pressure, due to demands being high and patients’ expectations rising.

The watchdog recommends that system leadership is required to coordinate information systems in Norfolk across health services.

The report says: “IT systems were raised as a pivotal concern due to an unequal spread of practices using different IT systems, such as EMIS Web and SystmOne. This meant that there was no common system being utilised across practices, with professionals clearly describing that, as a result, this creates communication problems across the health and social care system.

“Professionals described demands upon General Practice to be unwieldly and a constant battle from day to day, with supply unable to meet demand. Instances were described where service activity has simply outgrown the physical capacity of their building and the building restricts how many patients can be seen. Another example was where practices were being asked by NHS England to take on more patients from their local area. This leads to practices being unable to cope and having to stop accepting new patients, in turn creating a vicious circle beginning to commonly affect practices.

“System leadership is required to coordinate information systems in Norfolk across health services.”