Research and Engagement
Central to our success as an organisation is our rigorous and nationally recognised research and engagement. Through expert staff and robust methodologies endorsed by research partners and Healthwatch England, we can be confident of our research findings and recommendations.
Talk to us about a research or engagement project that you are developing or would like to develop. We undertake commissioned research and engagement in partnership with other organisations to provide insight into complex issues. We also offer consultancy advice or can help recruit patients to work with you.
Co-production
We are experts in working with patients and the people who use health and social care services to co-design the services of the future. We can provide consultancy advice, or recruit patient partners to work with you. To discuss this more, get in touch. We can support you in designing robust co-production and patient engagement models. Recent examples of such work include developing co-production boards for the South and West Hertfordshire Health and Care Partnership and West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and a patient engagement model for the East and North Hertfordshire Health and Care Partnership. We can also provide consultancy advice or recruit patient partners to work with you.
"With Healthwatch’s leadership the co-production board supports [us] to embed the community, patient and pubic voice within its core business and transformation opportunities”
Example Projects
Hertfordshire residents reveal serious gambling harms
Local people affected by gambling – either directly or indirectly – have described the issue as “everywhere” and “inescapable”, leading to devastating impacts on finances, society and health.
News
Using Sexual Health Services – Experiences of Local People
Hertfordshire adults generally have good access to local sexual health services, but have told us they want more information about infections, prevention and testing, as well as clinics in more discreet locations and additional online services.
News
9 in 10 Herts residents have been affected by Cost of Living
Our latest report - Cost of Living Crisis: The Impact on Hertfordshire Residents - reveals 6500 residents who responded to our survey have felt the impact of rising costs.
News
Parents and carers voice their concerns about accessing GP Practices
Many parents and carers have faced serious problems trying to make GP appointments for their child, sometimes waiting more than an hour to speak to a receptionist, only to be told there are no appointments available.
News
Visiting Beyond the Pandemic - A Review of Hertfordshire Care Homes
Concerns about flexibility of visiting times in care homes and lack of clarity about restrictions led us to explore what information was available on 135 of our Hertfordshire care home websites.
Report
Improving Healthcare Access for Veterans
Find out what the veteran community in Hertfordshire told us about their experiences of accessing healthcare.
News
Evaluation
As an independent charity, we are best placed to support health and care services in completing evaluations. Get in touch if you have completed research or engagement project and need an independent review or evaluation to identify key learnings and good practice.
“On behalf of all the InHIP programme partners within Herts and West Essex ICS, I would like to thank Healthwatch Hertfordshire for supporting this fantastic evaluation. The findings from this report will help inform our forthcoming action plan regarding tackling cardiovascular disease in at risk communities. This evaluation will also inform the further work needed to continue to engage with diverse communities regarding the health issues that affect them and inform interventions that should take place with communities.”
Quality Visits
We have a lot of experience organising visits to health and social care services to help services identify what is working well and where they could improve.
As part of the visits we will work with services to identify what intelligence they need, and collect evidence through observation and speaking to staff and patients. We can also formulate recommendations to inform changes for both individual services as well as the system.
Contact us to find out more.
Specialist talks
Our Information and Signposting Team attend events all over the county, providing help and support on how to access all aspects of health and social care. If you would like them to attend an event or speak to your staff, please just make a request via info@healthwatchhertfordshire.co.uk
Testimonials from Partners
“Our relationship with Healthwatch Hertfordshire continues to be a constructive and mutually supportive one. In this most extraordinary of years for the NHS, the insight brought by Healthwatch has been invaluable, particularly in understanding how patients are feeling about the changing way in which health care has been delivered during the pandemic. Healthwatch Hertfordshire also continues to ensure that patient concerns and feedback about local services are raised with us, which plays a big part in improving the health and care services that are provided for our population.”
Engaging with Healthwatch colleagues has supported the ICB Nursing & Quality team [to] gain additional patient
perspective/insight on Health service provision from Primary, Secondary, Mental Health and Independent sectors. The
communication of information supports identification of emerging or unresolved quality issues, that requires exploration
with colleagues to help address.