Healthwatch Hertfordshire’s Annual Report 2015/16
Reflecting on 2015/16 I think we can be proud of our achievements but also need to be aware that for service users and patients in Hertfordshire there are still many challenges ahead to provide high quality integrated care services. Our role is to represent and champion patients and the public; making sure their perspective is at the centre of service provision and future plans. Reading this report, you will see many examples where we have helped this happen in practice, but many of our daily signposting calls occur when the care system has not always worked as it should.
Highlights from the year include:
- Winning a Healthwatch England award ‘Making a Difference to Healthcare’ as a result of our research into GP Access which focused on practices working more closely together, premises issues and improving access to services
- At the request of local public health, carrying out an oral health needs assessment on access to dental care resulting in a range of recommendations including improved clarity and communication about costs, services and treatments
- Because of the volume of feedback, we receive about complaints we evaluated the experiences of patients with regard to the Health and Care Complaints process. We made recommendations for improvement including the publication of complaints policies on websites, making access to the Patient Liaison Service advice more accessible and adopting a ‘You said We did’ approach.
We assess the quality of health and social care services from a patient perspective through our programme of Enter and View visits and the support we give to PLACE visits. Our comprehensive recommendations from those visits are set out in the report.
During last year, we focussed on specific areas including dementia, patient transport and services for the Transgender community.
