Black, Minority and Ethnic (BME) Communities - GP Accessibility & Registration Report 2018
Summary
Our report focussed on the difficulties BAME community members have in registering with a GP in Darlington, the support and standard of care they are given when using their GP surgery, and the provisions in place to address language barriers for BAME patients. We spoke to a mixture of services users.
Booking appointments over the
phone and completing preappointment health
questionnaires in the practice
was also difficult for service users
due to low English language
skills.
Findings
The most important concern that has emerged during our study is that GP practices in Darlington are not sufficiently recognising the struggles that BME residents may be facing when trying to register, accessing appointments and completing application forms/ documents when faced with speaking no or little English. BME residents have provided us with a clearer insight into what matters to them the most. We recognise that some practices in Darlington provide good provisions to meet the needs of all patients with positive feedback contributed in some cases. A large proportion of qualitative data however highlights a need to review the current translation service and initial support in place for patients.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the involvement of Darlington Assistance for Refugees (DAR) and Sajna Miah (Healthwatch Darlington, Health Connector Volunteer) for sharing the views and experiences of refugees and BME residents living in Darlington.
