A message from our Chief Executive: What we are doing to help tackle Coronavirus
April 2020
Dear All
I hope you are keeping well and safe at this unprecedented and challenging time.
In light of recent Public Health and Healthwatch England advice, we have been reviewing our activity in response to the coronavirus outbreak. As you are probably aware, Healthwatch Hertfordshire is part of a national network and we received advice from Healthwatch England, the overseeing national body, in response to national developments. As a result, we have closed down all face-to-face activities until the end of May. To safeguard our staff and the local community our team are all working from home and will attend online and telephone meetings only but where possible it will be business as usual.
I wanted to write to you, partly to reinforce the message that we are still here and want to hear your views, to remind you of some of the sources of information that are out there for you to help deal with the crisis and a reminder that our website includes important links to reliable sources of information about coronavirus.
Rightly, the focus of health and social care currently must be on managing the crisis and the NHS and Social Care are doing a brilliant job with great support from the voluntary and community organisations and communities themselves. I know lots of you are out there supporting people.
The situation is shifting daily and ways of working in health and social care are being changed to help manage the crisis. For example, routine operations are being postponed, hospital visiting is restricted and discharge from hospitals is working differently. Although these changes are understandable, their impact is significant. The voice of patients, service users, and carers is as important as ever to help services understand and improve from your experiences and we’d like to hear from you. If you have experienced changes are these being explained properly, did you understand what was happening and why?
How you can give us your views – positive and negative
- Use our signposting service – you can contact us if you have any issues you want to raise with us, or if you would like information to help deal with your needs. You can contact us by phone and we will call you back, or you can email or contact us online.
- Provide feedback for example through on-line surveys – we will be gathering views of people about their needs and experiences in relation to COVID-19 and other services. We will then raise our findings with health and care commissioners and providers as soon as is possible.
Information about Coronavirus
We also have a key role at present to help support the health and social care system to get clear and accurate information and advice out to communities. This will include link referring people to credible, external sites providing information nationally, and local content linking you to services when changes are made, or where providers are giving out messages to the public.
Even if you don’t always feel confident using the internet, please do keep an eye on our website if you can. With things changing quickly, it’s much easier to keep electronic information up to date and make links to other useful information. If you can’t use electronic sources, please look to information produced by organisations such as the NHS and Government.
Lastly the website will also include some practical information to help you with managing the difficult times ahead. This will include sources of information to help you manage the challenges of self-isolation and social distancing.
We will continue to keep you informed of developments and everyone at Healthwatch Hertfordshire wishes that you stay safe and healthy.
Take care, everyone.
Geoff Brown
Chief Executive Healthwatch Hertfordshire
Sources of Information
Latest Information from the Government and NHS:Coronavirus (Covid19): what you need to do
The latest medical advice from the NHS
If you need our help, we are still available and we will aim to respond within 5 working days.
01707 275978
info@healthwatchhertfordshire.co.uk
If the matter is an emergency, please ring 999.
If the matter is urgent but not an emergency, then contact the 111 service online or call 111 if you need to talk to someone. If you have a safeguarding concern then please raise this by calling: 0300 123 4042.
