Together we are making health and social care better- proud to make a difference.
Our mission at ECS is “to ensure the voices of those who use public services are at the forefront of service design and delivery”. As part of these processes, the network of ECS Healthwatch published 98 reports in 2022/2023, across Stoke-on-Trent, Halton, Warrington, Walsall, Sandwell, and Leicester, about the improvements people would like to see to health and social care services. Over 400 recommendations for improvement were made in our reports, all based on people's experiences of health and social care.
We achieved great success in all our projects, here are two examples from our Healthwatch Sandwell team’s work around “Improving Access to Primary Care Services” and the Healthwatch Halton team’s work around “Advocating for fairer NHS dentistry in Halton”.
Improving Access to Primary Care Services – Healthwatch Sandwell
Covid-19 impact effectively supported the NHS Long Term Plan 2019 “digital first” agenda for primary care services. However, nationally, Sandwell falls within one of the most deprived local authority areas, including for digital skills and digital access poverty and an increasingly ethnically diverse population with some language barriers.
“People cannot negotiate the systems to book G.P. appointments to be seen for health conditions. The systems are creating more barriers to access and more inequality.”
Healthwatch Sandwell frequently hear resident’s frustrations with trying to access and obtain appointments at their G.P. practices. Our priority project looked at the patient experience of accessing primary care services through all booking options and the impacts and outcomes of failure to access services.
Headline findings:
29% of patients had tried and failed to obtain appointments at their G.P. practice.
75% of whom had not accessed other primary care options or still needed to see someone for their health condition.
32% of the patients who had not been seen responded that they were self-managing their health conditions.
What difference will we make?
The Healthwatch Sandwell report made 11 recommendations to help ensure service development plans for primary care provide equal access to meet all patient's needs. This report was complemented by our project work on Accessibility: meeting information and communication needs which was based on the experiences, voices, and views of people with disabilities, sensory loss and impairments and provided a practical “toolkit” to help health, care and support services meet individual information and communication needs. Both reports have been recognised locally and with Black Country services who are engaging with Healthwatch Sandwell on improvement plans.
Nationally, Healthwatch England commended the work on the Accessibility project:
“This is a great example of exactly the kind of complementary local work which can help to amplify and drive forward the wider campaign on accessible information and hold local systems accountable.”
Urte Macikene Policy & External Affairs Manager Healthwatch England
Advocating for fairer NHS dentistry in Halton – Healthwatch Halton
NHS dentistry is in desperate need of reform and this year the Healthwatch network has successfully moved NHS dentistry up the political agenda, advocating for the systematic improvements local people have told us they need.
The dental crisis continues to adversely affect Halton residents. With dentists not taking on new patients and NHS patients, there is an increasing inequality of access between those who can afford to pay for private dental care and those who have to struggle without care. The dental crisis needs action both locally and nationally.
Locally, we found that most practices were not taking on new NHS patients and that some had more than 500 people on waiting lists, which could take up to five years to clear.
What we did:
Following on from our ‘Big Dental Check-up’ report, published in March 2022, we continued to hear from people struggling to access local NHS dental care.
We produced a follow-up report, ‘Access to NHS Dental Services’ report published, based on the experiences on 197 people, in December 2022.
We shared our findings with the Health & Wellbeing board, calling on it to focus on Oral Health as a priority issue.
Together with Healthwatch England and the rest of the Healthwatch network, we made renewed calls on NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care to put a reformed dental contract in place.
The responsibility for dental commissioning moves to Integrated Care Systems (ICS) from July 2023, and in advance of this we shared the experiences of local people to ensure the new commissioners are planning ahead. This included highlighting that Halton was one of the area’s most severely affected by the dental crisis, with the lowest proportion of children having been able to access dental care. (Only 42.2% of children in Halton saw an NHS dentist in the period June 2021 to June 2022).
The Integrated Care Board (ICB) has committed to agreeing and implementing a Dental Recovery Plan. We will continue to share patient experience on this subject until the crisis is resolved.
“It’s ridiculous - the last time I needed treatment I had to travel to West Kirby for help as that was where my old dentist was based. A 60-mile round trip!!” Jane, Halton resident
ECS through its delivery of local Healthwatch, remains committed to improving health and social care services for local people, making sure people are at the design and delivery of services to ensure they remain effective and fit for purpose. We strive to maximise the impact we make through our research, and you can read our local project reports, specific to our service delivery areas of ECS Healthwatch here through these links:
Healthwatch Bedford Borough – click here
Healthwatch Halton – click here
Healthwatch Stoke-on-Trent – click here
Healthwatch Walsall – click here
Healthwatch Warrington – click here
Healthwatch Sandwell – click here
Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin – click here