How Healthwatch support seldom heard voices

News - 6 September 2023

We continue our support of the NHS and Kent County Council in hearing from the public to codesign the future of their Integrated Community Equipment Services (ICES).

For more on this see this link. 

Our visits in the community with the ICES project

This project is still live, having spoken to Carers Support East Kent and reached out to the Caribbean, Roma, Nigerian and Nepalese community.

Caribbean community
This month we attended the Windrush commemoration event hosted by North Kent Caribbean group. For a write up of our initial listening visit to this community during Windrush month, and to access a related resource click here.

Support and information for those connected to or concerned with the experience of the Windrush generation

We worked with our signposting and information support services to create a resource to do with the experiences of health and social care for the Windrush generation and those linked to them.

For more on how Healthwatch are ensuring the voice of seldom heard communities are heard, see elsewhere in this newsletter.

As ever, to reach our Signposting and Information Team click here for contact details. 

Further listening is planned to this community to focus on their awareness and experience of the ICES service.

Gypsy Roma Traveller community

Healthwatch Kent have been planning visits to multiple Kent sites with the Gypsy Roma Traveller Network. The first of these sites will occur in the coming months to support the ICES project but will expand to consider wider health inequalities potentially faced by the community. More will be shared about opportunities to volunteer and support this effort next month.

Additional visit

On July 6th we visited the Nepalese Community Centre in Folkestone once more, this time with a member of the NHS and a Senior Occupational Therapist.

This builds on our listening to the views of just under 60 people, with 22 experiences heard of those finding everyday tasks challenging without access equipment support.

We will share more as the project closes.

Providing a platform for marginalised groups

This isn't the first time we've worked with the Nepalese community and we were shortlisted for a national award last year for helping their experiences of digital exclusion be heard.
 

Raising the voice of Fisherman

 

We want to recognise the minorities unrelated to ethnicity that still make up parts of the population facing disproportionate ill health and that are less represented than other communities in their experiences of health and social care.

In our Annual report we shared of our work with fishermen in coastal Kent.