News and reports

Take a look at this months Insight Report, which will give you a snap shot of what our team have been doing during July.

Please click the link below to see what was discussed during our Health Advisory Board meeting, held on 4th July 2023.

During July Healthwatch England launched new research which shows people are experiencing catastrophic health impacts as a result of NHS appointments, procedures and operations being delayed or cancelled.

The Daily Telegraph says “Did you know 4 in 10 NHS patients face multiple delays in treatment?”

Diabetes clinic at Sandwell General Hospital gives patients the chance to meet a range of different members of staff who have specialised and have years of experience looking after people with diabetes who can check that they are as healthy as possible and give them highly specialised advice on how to look after their diabetes. Most referrals come via the GP.

Healthwatch Sandwell are aware the challenges people facing regarding getting GP appointments, especially during the pandemic. We would like to capture the other side of GP surgeries, what are surgeries doing to improve the patient experience?

This will help:

• Inform patients about improvements the surgeries are making

• Build relationships with Practice Managers and Patient Participation Groups (PPG)

• Promote PPGs

Healthwatch Sandwell is your local health and social care champion. We make sure NHS leaders and decision makers hear your voice and use your feedback to improve care. We can also help you to find reliable and trustworthy information and advice.

Over the past year we have published 22 reports, engaged with 2,043 people and visited six towns of Sandwell delivering our Guided By You workshops.

Information for our Health Advisory Board Meeting to be held 4th July 2023.

Healthwatch Sandwell (HWS) have the power to visit health and social care services, where health and social care is publicly funded and delivered. This power to Enter and View services offers a way for HWS to meet some of their statutory functions and to collect evidence of what works well. HWS use this evidence to make recommendations to commissioners and providers of health and social care services and to inform changes both for individual services as well as system wide and to improve people’s experiences.

Healthwatch Sandwell will be visiting premises throughout 2023. Keep up to date on the latest Enter and View reports on our website or following us on socials media!

Hello May,

Healthwatch Sandwell latest ebulletin.

Healthwatch England published the second piece of research on GP referrals, which was based on the experiences of 1,518 people who have asked for a GP referral for tests, diagnosis or treatment. Nearly one in five (18%) of those people required four or more GP appointments to get a referral. Healthwatch England have called on decision makers to do more to understand the referral process eg. collect national data, and to improve communication with patients.
They secured an exclusive article with the Times to highlight the issue of referral delays.

An overview of the findings of Enter and View visits that took place between January 2022 and March 2023.