Residents in the Burnham-On-Sea area are being asked for their views on using the county’s 111 non-emergency phone line.
The county’s independent health and care champion Healthwatch Somerset is asking people to share their experiences of using the service – so that the public voice can be fed into any decisions made by the commissioners later this year.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) recently rated the NHS 111 non-emergency phone line in Somerset as “requires improvement for being safe and effective”.
The survey by Healthwatch Somerset aims to capture the patient voice to ensure their views are taken into account.
This is ahead of the move to a new Integrated Urgent Care Service for the county where Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group will be incorporating the views of service users and the public into the development of the new service model.
Emily Taylor, Manager at Healthwatch Somerset, told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “We feel that we are undertaking this piece of work at a critical point in time. We have seen no evidence that patient feedback is being collected about the service and therefore the views of the users are not being considered in decision making.”
“Going forward, we want to be in a position to let Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group know where the issues are and actively encourage changes to be made.”
Healthwatch Somerset has a seat on the Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group’s Governing Body and will monitor any actions taken following the survey.
If you would like to give feedback, take part in the online survey here or contact Healthwatch Somerset info@healthwatchsomerset.co.uk, or telephone: 01278 264405. Please note that your feedback will be kept anonymous.
