Annual Report 2014/15

Healthwatch Coventry report on its key achievements for 2014/15. It:

• Improved access to hospital support services, leading to the hospital Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) being relocated back to the main reception area and expanding the staffing team following Healthwatch recommendations. 
• Influenced improvements to hospital access and parking arrangements, with changes made to traffic flow around the hospital site and work beginning to increase visitor parking capacity in response to earlier Healthwatch recommendations. 
• Supported 71 local people to raise complaints about NHS services through its Independent Complaints Advocacy Service, including people who would otherwise have been unable to pursue concerns about their care. 
• Successfully raised concerns about mental health services, resulting in mental health commissioning being added to local Health and Wellbeing Board priorities and a review being commissioned through the Adult Services Commissioning Board. 
• Influenced the commissioning of patient transport services by providing evidence to commissioners, contributing to the specification for a new contract and helping secure additional funding for the service.
• Carried out Enter and View visits to eight care homes, resulting in improvements to care home environments and highlighting issues affecting residents' quality of life. 
• Gave disadvantaged and seldom-heard groups a stronger voice, particularly people who were homeless or vulnerably housed, people with mental health or substance misuse issues, newly settled Black African and Eastern European communities, and people with learning disabilities. 
• Gathered the views of local people on GP quality through surveys, focus groups and Enter and View visits, producing nine recommendations that informed the work of the Health and Wellbeing Board's Primary Care Quality Group.