THE board meetings of the Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care System are open to the public.

A representative from the Harlow Alliance Party is often the only person to attend.

Members of the public can table questions.

The following question was one of four raised at the boards most recent meeting. A response was sent on 1 June.

Q. Lots of patients in the Harlow area are still having difficulty getting through to surgeries for appointments and getting face to face appointments with GP’s. This is very evident from the number of posts highlighting this problem on various social media sites. What is the CCG doing to address this issue?

R. The following is a summary of the response:

Demand on general practice continues to rise when compared to pre-pandemic and to date the increase is 7-10%. Across West Essex an additional 102k (a 7.1% increase) in appointments were undertaken compared with pre-pandemic appointments

General practices are operating a range of models to manage priorities ensuring patients who need to be seen are seen whilst also offering a range of virtual appointments in combination which has been welcomed by patients too.

Month on month we are seeing improvements across most practices increasing the proportion of face-to-face appointments from 30-40% in January/February 2022 to an average of around 60% now.

Through the Winter Access Fund each practice has an agreed action plan to make improvements within Harlow.

I think it would be interesting to learn from each practice in Harlow just what proportion of face-to-face appointments are being undertaken and more about their action plan to improve their service.

Nicholas Taylor
Leader of the Harlow Alliance Party