In November 2021, a series of engagement interviews were undertaken with patients who had recently had an experience with primary care e.g. GP surgeries, pharmacists etc. Further to this, they were patients that recognised that they were becoming increasingly frustrated with primary care.
The aim of these engagement interviews was to identify patient frustrations with primary care, and to understand what could alleviate these frustrations and reduce the amount of abuse that primary care staff are facing. As part of this, we also stress-tested potential propositions that could help to shape and optimise engagement and impact of future communication campaigns relating to the abuse of primary care staff.
We recruited to ensure that we had a good mix of patients in terms of; Health complaint, ethnicity and Local Authority within West Yorkshire. All of whom will have stated to having a recent experience with primary care and feeling frustrated, angry or upset during the experience. Due to the individual nature of each person and their experiences, the engagement interviews were carried out as an individual discussion via an in-depth interview lasting up one hour using Zoom.
This campaign launched in March 2022. The findings from the engagement with patients can be found here. Engagement also took place with colleagues from primary care to design the campaign.