News

Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is the virus causing many coughs and colds, which peaks in December and January each year.

Usually, RSV infections get better by themselves, but they can become much more serious for some people, particularly babies and older adults. A vaccine is now available to help protect young babies and older people from becoming seriously unwell from RSV.

The eligible groups for the RSV vaccine are:

• All pregnant women from 28 weeks pregnancy until delivery, however the optimal time to receive the vaccine is between 28 and 36 weeks.
• Older adults aged 75-79. This is a one-off vaccine from age 75 until the day before your 80th birthday. 

The vaccine is safe for pregnant women, and it reduces the risk of a child developing severe RSV lung disease by 70% in the first six months of life when they are most at risk.

If you are currently pregnant get your vaccine by:

• Attending one of the open access vaccination clinics in the antenatal departments at either the Leicester Royal Infirmary or the Leicester General Hospital every weekday, 9:00am until 4:30pm.
• Visiting a roving clinic.
• Contacting your midwife or your GP practice.

 If you are aged between 75 – 79 years, you can get the RSV vaccine by:

• Attending your GP practice, once invited (all eligible patients will receive an invitation from their practice).
• Visiting one of the roving healthcare units across LLR.

We are delighted to announce that we have been re-accredited the Cyber Essentials certificate.

Connected Together CIC have recently been re-awarded the Cyber Essentials accreditation. This is a government-backed scheme that helps protect our organisation against a whole range of common cyber attacks. It also ensures that we keep your data private and secure against cyber attacks.

To read more about the accreditation click here.

Healthwatch Rutland is a member of the Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP). The group is looking for members to share their experiences so that they can help shape our local maternity services.

As a member, you’ll collaborate with service users, midwives, obstetricians, and local groups, all dedicated to enhancing maternity care. It’s an opportunity to share your feedback, contribute to meaningful projects, and engage with a supportive community.

MNVP

In September the MNVP held their first face to face meeting. The room was full of parents, professionals and young children all sharing service updates, experiences and ideas of how to improve care. The feedback from parents who have recently used maternity services within these meetings is invaluable. Whether online or face to face the meetings are always a supportive, safe space for people to communicate about maternity and neonatal care. 

At the meeting in September, we gave our ideas of what information we feel is important to share with expectant families on digital screens within the University Hospitals Leicester maternity departments. 

Your involvement, whether through participating in our meetings, celebrating women’s achievements, or sharing your journey of motherhood, enriches our community. Together, we can make a lasting impact.

MNVP

It would be great to see more Rutland representatives at the MNVP meetings, to contact the MNVP team, email: llr.mnvp@gmail.com

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.