Primary Care Pathfinder: discovery report – research priorities
3. What we focused on
Our research prioritised:
- speaking to users of patient-facing digital systems in primary care to understand their attitudes towards technology, perception of care, what is important to them and why, and their previous experience of primary care services
- understanding how primary care works and is experienced from the perspective of both citizens of Wales and GP surgeries
- identifying and understanding existing or emerging digital interventions and where they fit into the overall system
- investigating and understanding the main features of the NHS Wales app
- understanding the policy for primary care, incorporating these findings into the review of primary care services and any opportunities we identify for future work
We aimed to speak to citizens, GPs, practice managers and administrative and reception staff in user research because the highest level of demand happens in general practice. We also spoke to pharmacy, dentistry and optometry (eye health) representatives.
4. What we did
We interviewed 14 citizens across Wales, recruited by a specialist agency and screened for a range of characteristics, including age group, gender, ethnicity, health conditions, and Welsh language skills.
These research sessions involved a higher proportion of people reporting poor health and disability than is seen in the general population. This is an established method for understanding people with more complex needs.
We cannot share further detail here for confidentiality reasons, as it could identify the individuals concerned.
Every health board covered
We spoke to GPs and GP surgery staff across every health board, through 60–90-minute interviews with 23 participants. We identified these individuals by communicating through our networks and asking them to fill in a form to indicate interest. This allowed us to select participants to reflect a mix of characteristics, such as urban/rural and small/medium/large practices, as well as levels of deprivation in the practice catchment area
The tables below show a breakdown of the practices and staff we engaged with.
| Role | Number |
| GP | 7 |
| Practice manager | 12 |
| Administration staff | 1 |
| Other | 3 |
| Size of practice | Number |
| Small | 3 |
| Medium | 15 |
| Large | 5 |
| Catchment area | Number |
| Urban | 14 |
| Rural | 9 |
| Practices in areas of deprivation | Number |
| Deprived | 5 |
| Not considered deprived | 18 |
We reviewed other research, including quantitative studies (collection and analysis of numerical data), to strengthen the findings from the small sample sizes we used. We used these other studies to triangulate (compare findings) with our own primary research.
We also spoke to organisations or groups working in primary care, to learn about their work and their perspectives on the challenges GP services and citizens face. These included:
- Welsh Government
- Strategic Programme for Primary Care
- Local health boards
- Primary care clusters
- Community health councils
- General Practitioners Committee Wales
- Royal Pharmaceutical Society
- Digital Health and Care Wales
- Technology Enabled Care Cymru
- Rural Health and Care Wales
- Representatives of community and allied health professionals
- A social enterprise
- Commercial digital providers
