A team from the Centre for Digital Public Services (CDPS) is on the ground talking to users and providers of GP services in Wales about how they perceive patient-facing digital systems – writes delivery manager Hannah Pike
4 March 2022
What are we ‘discovering’?
Commissioned by Digital Services for Patients and the Public (DSPP) – the new national programme to improve digital services for NHS Wales patients – a CDPS discovery is gathering insights into how people in Wales get access to primary care.
The discovery, which is running for 12 weeks, will help DSPP to understand the crucial things to consider when designing and delivering patient-facing digital services in primary care (more specifically, GP services).
Our research with patients will cover questions such as:
- how often do you interact with your GP?
- how well does that interaction meet your needs?
- what, if any, existing digital medical services do you use?
Practices large and small
When it comes to primary care providers, we want to speak to people from GP practices large and small, rural and urban, managed or partner-run. As well as GPs themselves, we’ll be researching the experience of practice nurses, managers and admin staff. Just as with patients, we want a detailed view, on an individual level, of how these users interact with digital technology.
The discovery phase will also look at the wider landscape of healthcare policy, technology and the interests of other stakeholders, as well as immediate users of GP services.
What’s the outcome?
We expect these conversations to yield rich insights into what’s important to people receiving and providing GP services in Wales.
Concretely, at the end of discovery, we hope to be able to make informed recommendations, balancing user needs, broader stakeholder interests and government strategy, about the shape future digital patient-facing services might take.
Hannah Pike is the delivery manager for the Primary Care Pathfinder discovery