We ensure that your voice is heard by decision makers within health and social care. But did you know that we also provide a free information and signposting service to help you understand health and social care services and what is available to you?
What our service is…
- A free, friendly, and confidential service for all residents of Kent, which is independent from the NHS and social care services.
- We will signpost you. This means that we will give you the contact details for a range of services that best support your request. Under most circumstances, you will then need to contact those organisations yourself.
- We can give you information about choices you have regarding where you might get help with your health, social care and wellbeing needs.
- We can give you information about what to do when things go wrong and help you understand how to make a complaint.
- Our service covers both Adult and Children's services
- We have interpreting and translation services available if you need them
- Everything you tell us is anonymised before being used to help improve services for everyone.
What our service is not…
- We are not trained clinicians or health and care professionals so we cannot offer advice on clinical matters. This might include advice and information about medication, queries about a diagnosis made by a doctor or recommendations about a choice over a particular treatment pathway.
- We are not a part of the NHS or Kent County Council. We are totally independent. Whilst we will use your feedback to improve services, we have no powers to investigate individual formal complaints about them.
- We cannot offer advice as to the ‘best’ place to go to receive a service or an opinion about which service you should choose for treatment, care or further information.
- We are not an advocacy service and so cannot make a complaint to a service on your behalf. We can help you to work out how to make a complaint and who to direct it to though. If you need help or support to formally complain about an NHS service then you should contact The Advocacy People: Kent (theadvocacypeople.org.uk).
- We are not able to offer financial, relationship, legal or specialist advice. We would recommend seeking professional help from a solicitor, counselor or financial advisor
Get in touch!
Our information and signposting service is totally free. Get in touch in any of the following ways:
Online: You can ask for our help by telling us what you need here
Call: Our freephone number is 0808 801 0102 open from 10am until 4pm Monday to Friday
Text: 07525 861 639. Text 'Need BSL' for our British Sign Language Communicator to contact you.
Post: FREEPOST RTLG-UBZB-JUZA Healthwatch Kent, 8 Tufton St, Ashford TN23 1QN Ashford, Please note, this can take several weeks to get to us
Email: info@healthwatchkent.co.uk
We will get back to you as soon as possible. In busy times that could be up to five working days. However, if we deem your query or request to be urgent, you will be prioritised.
Please allow up to 10 working days for us to organise British Sign Language support.
Need more detail?
For more detailed information about our Information & Signposting offer, feel free to check out our Operational Policy.