Listening to public experience in hospitals and around how they access care
Gathering general day-to-day feedback across health and social care settings is a continual priority for Healthwatch. With Volunteer teams trained for hospital settings and increasingly confident enough to be responsible for conducting visits and collecting data across multiple locations, the Stakeholder initiative was developed.
Stakeholder initiative
The aim of the effort is to conduct regular visits in all major hospitals across the county, with a focus on hospital main entrances and waiting rooms. The graphic above shows the visits conducted thus far.
The ‘YouSaidWeDid’ graphic above shows how we were able to hear and act upon stories from the public. We also heard an actionable insight relating to accessibility. We acted upon this insight and more information and a link to a full report on the outcome of our work is below.
Improving access in Kent hospitals
During the Stakeholder Initiative we heard from someone experiencing accessibility issues. We spoke to wheelchair users and recommended an alternative was introduced. We are still working with the 3 main trusts across Kent to implement the new bins to disabled toilets and are supporting a unified approach to accessibility on this front across all trusts (aiming for the same bin models to be used across the board).
For the full report click here
Expanding on the Stakeholder initiative
Having established a method to work within hospitals to hear your experiences, Healthwatch wanted to bring their presence across the Kent Trusts to the review of ways that the NHS is attempting to develop new ways of ensuring local people get the care they need.
Improving the experience of Ear Nose and Throat care
The NHS in Kent and Medway are looking to improve the way patients are referred by their GP for further assessment or treatment, known as the referral process.
How we plan to help you be heard
Healthwatch are planning on talking to people in Ear Nose and Throat outpatient departments to understand what happens for them during the current referral process. In 3-6 months, after the system improvements have been put in place, we will return to see if those effected by the new version of the process have experienced a difference in how they are cared for.
As we begin to plan the visits, Volunteer opportunities will be shared.
