News

As part of the Healthwatch Rutland children and young people focus, we recently visited the Rutland Family Hub. Over the last couple of years, one of our work themes has been NHS dentistry access in Rutland. Continuing with that theme, we are now seeking to find out if children and young people can access NHS dentistry locally.

Myself, husband and daughter have been registered [at a dentist] in Uppingham for over 10 years but I can’t get my 15-month-old to see the dentist there on the NHS! He has to go to a different one alone. Going together as a family makes it more natural and easier for children. It can be daunting for them. On his first experience the dentist said he was too young even though he had broke his first tooth.

Parent

We are private patients, it’s nearly impossible to get NHS here [in Rutland]. When pregnant I tried pretty much every dentist in Rutland to get NHS care but couldn’t find anywhere.

Parent

13 children had visited an NHS dentist in the last 6 months. “We go every 6 months and feel lucky to be able to access NHS dentists.”

Parent

Towards the end of the financial year, we will be publishing a wider report based on our engagement with families, children and young people. 

Whilst at the Family Hub, it was great to see so many resources available. As well as 2 indoor rooms, they have an outdoor space which is used for play and to grow vegetables. The sessions which we attended cater for children up to 5 years old however the Hub also provides sessions for parents such as Living with Teens, a Sleep Tight workshop and Pediatric First Aid courses. 

We look forward to visiting the team at their sessions across the county in Uppingham Scout Hut, St Georges Community Centre and Kendrew Barracks. 

For more information on the Family Hub and the support they provide:

www.visionsccc.co.uk 

01572 758383

Public Health teams across the region recently attended the annual East Midlands Public Health Conference. They were invited to take part in a poster competition where colleagues could present a poster to showcase work that they have been involved in. See below how we contributed to West Northamptonshire Council’s winning poster.

Earlier this year Healthwatch North and West Northamptonshire published their report on Respiratory Conditions within the N4 LAP, which explored the experience of individuals living with a breathing condition or respiratory disease, like COPD. We discussed with people locally about what works well to manage their condition and what support works well for them, as well as what some of the challenges and barriers can be when living with a breathing condition. This included discussing effective supports and any services individuals wished were in place.

Our research was fed back to West Northamptonshire Council, who commissioned the work, in order for them to review the findings and work to better services for people locally, as a part of their Breathlessness Pathway Programme.

They recently presented this work at the annual East Midlands Public Health Conference, where the poster(see above) for the Breathlessness Pathway Programme was presented and was selected as one of the winners! This is an exciting award, that we are proud to have contributed to the work on and are happy to share our certificate of recognition below.

Connected Together CIC is the contract holder of Healthwatch North and West Northamptonshire and Healthwatch Rutland.

Healthwatch exists on a national and local level, working towards the same goal of enabling people to have a voice about their health and social care services.

They take the experiences and views of the people of Northamptonshire and Rutland respectively and provide recommendations back to the service providers and commissioners with the power to make change happen. 

Each has produced a clear outline of who they are, how they work and how they can help you.

The NHS report recently published, came after a nine-week review by independent peer and surgeon Lord Darzi, who was asked to identify the current failings in the health service.

The report highlights some of the following key findings:

• Long waits in A&E likely to be causing an additional 14,000 more deaths a year
• The state of the NHS is not entirely due to what has happened within the health service, but also because the health of the nation has deteriorated 
• Rising levels of illness risk economic prosperity, with 2.8 million people unable to work because of poor health
• Higher cancer mortality rates than other countries
• Although hospital staff numbers have increased since the pandemic, the number of appointments and procedures hasn’t
• The NHS has been starved of capital investment

If you have accessed the department with a poorly child in the last 2 years, we would like to hear from you.

The Leicester Children’s Emergency Department is a 24 hour facility located on the Leicester Royal Infirmary site. Patients can walk-in for treatment, be referred there by contacting NHS 111, or be taken by ambulance.

We are running a short survey alongside colleagues at Healthwatch Leicester and Healthwatch Leicestershire to understand families’ experiences of using the service. The survey takes around 5 minutes to complete, or we can send you a hardcopy. 

Your feedback is anonymous and will be used with that from other people, to write a report on people’s experiences of accessing childrens’ emergency care

Please share your experience and make a difference!

To order a hardcopy call 01572 720381 or email info@healthwatchrutland.co.uk 

Our project to understand people’s experiences of the communications they receive when moving between NHS services is continuing through August.

We’d like to hear how you have found the process of referrals from the GP practice to hospital care, diagnostic tests (and getting back the results), discharge from hospital care to GP & any medications involved etc. 

This could include communications by letter, text messages, phone calls or use of apps for organising appointments or patient transport or medications.

Hollie was interviewed by Rob Persani for Rutland and Stamford Sound recently. You can hear what she said about the project in this short clip from the interview:

Our online survey takes about 5 minutes to complete, or we can send you a hardcopy or easy read version if preferred. We are also offering an in-person chat or half hour telephone call if anyone would prefer to talk in a bit of detail about their experiences.

To request a hardcopy or easy read survey please email info@healthwatchrutland.co.uk or leave a message on 01572720381.