News

Do you find communications from the NHS to you are easily understandable? Do they arrive on time and give you enough information?

The NHS communicates with us in many ways about health appointments, referrals to specialists and medications etc. You might receive a text message on your mobile phone or a telephone call for instance. There’s also face-to-face consultations, letters and emails. Often it is a combination of all of the above.

HWR has received feedback from the public that people often encounter problems with the administration and communications around moving between healthcare providers in the journey to receive diagnosis and treatment. This can happen especially with appointments, referrals, and medications management for instance. We now want to understand more about how you are finding the process of getting appointments and moving between different NHS services to receive care.

Do you find the communications easily understandable? Do they arrive on time and give you enough information? Equally, do you have a story about how administration and communication between services about you, and also directly with you, have worked really well?

You might be an occasional user of health services or you might be living with multiple physical or mental health conditions for which you need ongoing care. You might have just started out on a treatment for a newly diagnosed health concern or you might have been receiving healthcare from multiple clinics or services over a long period. All your stories matter – please share with us how you are finding the administration of your appointments and medications and how well your care and treatment are communicated when moving between your GP surgery and other healthcare services. 

Whether your experience is great or poor, please complete our short survey and let us know if you want to talk further about how you think things can be improved:

If you need a printed version of the survey or prefer to talk in person please email info@healthwatchrutland.co.uk or leave a message on the office voicemail 01572 730281 and we’ll call you back. 

Would you like to talk in more detail about your experiences of NHS communications and administration? If so, just add your contact details to register your interest below and we will be in touch to arrange a half-hour conversation by phone or in-person if you prefer.

Young Healthwatch Northamptonshire is running a survey on behalf of Teen Clinic Daventry. We want to hear and understand young people’s experiences using their services so that we can analyse what is working well and what can be improved to better provide help.

Teen Clinic Daventry is a clinic offering free drop-in sessions monthly for 11-18 year olds to get support. TCD is a partnership between health, education, the local community and the young people of Daventry. They aim to provide a service focussing on physical and mental health, sexual health and contraception support for young people living in Daventry and/or attending a school in the town.

Sarah Tudor, Teen Clinic Daventry Clinical Lead and General Practioner, said ‘Teen Clinic Daventry is an exciting collaborative service which grew in response to the needs and concerns of young people in Daventry. It is wonderful to be part of such an integrated young person focussed team. Our hope is to continue to grow the service, to develop our service provision and access for the young people of Daventry. As well as empowering them to make confident and positive health choices.  A huge thank you to everyone involved in the project.’

Our revisit to the Adults Emergency Department at Leicester Royal Infirmary finds welcome changes and we recommend continuing with improvement work.

In September 2022, Healthwatch Leicester, Healthwatch Leicestershire and Healthwatch Rutland visited the Leicester Royal Infirmary (LRI) Adults Emergency Department (ED) to observe the department and listen to patient experiences. These findings were presented to the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL) to assist them with improving the patient experience at ED. 

In September 2023, Healthwatch revisited this project and further engaged with people in the ED. The revisit uses the 16 recommendations from the 2022 report as a framework for assessing changes that have been made to improve patient experience over the year since the original visit.

Healthwatch acknowledges the UHL response to the 2022 report and the huge amount of work carried out across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland to improve patient flows. We also recognise that ED is an area where patient demand can often exceed resources. With this in mind, and following our revisit, we recommend continuing with improvement works with a particular focus on the following:

1. Continue to explore options for people who may need to lie down whilst waiting for assessment.
2. Consider using screens that are not in use to display information for patients such as waiting times, complaints procedure, carers’ charter and data privacy.
3. Find a system for calling patients into assessment or treatment areas which is straightforward, does not introduce excessive background noise and is appropriate for those people with hearing or sight problems.
4. Establish a procedure for those patients who have to temporarily leave the waiting areas, so they do not lose their place in the queue.
5. Remove the unused porta cabin outside ED to provide easier access for people with additional needs and those who use wheelchairs.
6. Consider displaying posters and information in other languages. 
7. Review the appropriateness of giving diagnoses and test results in the waiting room in the presence of other patients. 
8. Ensure consistent assistance and observation of patients in the waiting room for signs of deterioration. 
9. Display clear information for patients about how they can alert staff to their worsening signs and symptoms of illness or injury.
10. Position portable warning signs where they do not present a tripping hazard.

Harsha Kotecha, Chair, Healthwatch Leicester and Healthwatch Leicestershire said, 

“We welcome the ongoing commitment from UHL to listen to the feedback from patients. Our recommendations aim to address observations and comments from patients during our visit to assist UHL in improving the emergency department services.”

Dr Janet Underwood, Chair, Healthwatch Rutland said,

“The changes that UHL have made since our 2022 visit to ED and their action plan in response to this 2023 visit are extremely encouraging and demonstrate a commitment to continual improvements. We thank UHL for their co-operation and wish them every success in addressing the remaining points we have raised to improve patient experience of the service.”

Richard Mitchell, Chief Executive, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust said:

“We appreciate recommendations for how we can improve the way we deliver care, and as a result have undertaken work to improve patients’ experience of our Emergency Department. This includes updating and expanding the range of information on display screens, and ensuring dedicated staff are providing consistent observation of patients in the waiting area for signs of deterioration. Work is underway to look at removing the portacabin to improve access, and we are developing ways to both improve the way patients are called and reduce background noise in reception areas. Our Patient Experience team is exploring ways in which we can provide information in other languages, and our cleaning teams are reviewing how they position portable warning signs to avoid creating a trip hazard.

“We would like to thank all patients and visitors to the Emergency Department for their patience and understanding, and apologise to anyone who has experienced a long wait over the busy winter months.”

The UHL action plan showing progress updates on the Healthwatch recommendations is detailed in the full report. 

The Healthwatch North and West Northamptonshire annual work plan helps provide commissioners and key stakeholders with an overview of planned activity for the next 12 months.

It is also a useful tool for review and evaluation. Each year in February, Healthwatch staff and volunteers review the previous year’s work and set the next year’s work based on information and intelligence gathered throughout the year along with other partner and stakeholder key priorities. Healthwatch North and West Northamptonshire’s strategic priorities are also revisited and reviewed at the same time to ensure they are aligned with our Vision and Values.

All our work is delivered within a very tight budget, which currently stands at £195k per annum to cover staff, volunteers and operational costs.

To enable us to continue to provide a quality service with an experienced staff team we also offer bespoke commissioned work to key stakeholders and partners to bring in additional income throughout the year to support the Healthwatch work.

We, along with Healthwatch Rutland and Healthwatch North and West Northamptonshire, are delighted to announce its Beacon membership of the Employers’ Initiative on Domestic Abuse (EIDA), a leading business network that supports employers to take action on domestic abuse.

The EIDA Beacon programme brings together businesses that have committed to tackling domestic abuse.  EIDA Beacons work collaboratively to raise awareness and to share learnings on how best to support employees and their families impacted by domestic abuse. ​EIDA works with employers to help them implement effective internal policies on domestic abuse, as well as providing awareness and signposting to up-to-date resources.

We are committed to raising awareness of the terrible impact of domestic abuse, to supporting its employees affected by domestic abuse, as well as to playing a leading role in encouraging and inspiring more employers to take action.