Physical distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges for the usual ways in which Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) seeks the views and experiences of people who access our health and care services.
 
To keep engaging with local people, our HSCP’s Community Engagement staff have been running Locality Engagement Forum (LEF) sessions online as a safer way to meet with people and gather their views on our health and social care services.

Forty people recently attended a virtual session on the afternoon of 30 September 2021, which focused on ‘Changes in our Primary Care Services’.

Tony Devine, one of our HSCP’s Community Engagement Officers, said: “General Practitioner (GP) and Primary Care services are often the first point of contact for patients. We invited local people to join us to speak to staff and find out how GPs are responding to the increasing demands on their service.

“The aim was to gather feedback and comments from a question and answer session on the development of the Primary Care Improvement Plan. Feedback would then inform the planning and provision of future Primary Care services.”

The engagement session provided an update on progress and service developments for Pharmacy, Optometry and GP services, as well as a snapshot of the priorities for 2021 / 22 and beyond.  The impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic and plans for the winter flu and COVID-19 booster vaccination programme were also discussed.
 
Participants were able to ask questions and discuss some of the current issues, including the impact of the pandemic, with speakers and service users.

Comments from participants included:

“All the speakers were interesting and honest.”

“Really worthwhile session.”

“Very informative; learned a lot.”

A report of the session is available.

More information is available on the work of our HSCP’s Locality Engagement Forums.