Quality Checkers at Imeary Street Surgery

People with learning disabilities can find it difficult to access NHS services, often due to complicated forms, words or confusing layouts in buildings.

We also know that people with a learning disability on average die much younger than other people because they often do not use important health services such as cancer screening or annual health checks.

Our Quality Checkers programme is one way we are trying to change this and we’re proud to have a contract with South Tyneside Clinical Commissioning Group to carry out regular reviews of GP practices in South Tyneside.

At these reviews, our team of Quality Checkers, who have lived experience of having a learning disability or being autistic, take a tour of the surgery and speak to patients with learning disabilities to hear about their experiences of using that practice. This information is then shared with the surgery so they can understand what is and isn’t working well for their patients with learning disabilities and make any improvements that are needed.

One of the team, David (pictured below with the practice manager Suzanne Roberts) recently visited Imeary Street Surgery in South Shields. This quality check involved lots of positive feedback from patients which is great news and we’re looking forward to continuing to work with the practice when they move to a bigger premises next year.