Listening and understanding how residents in Newhaven and Peacehaven experience local health and care services and wider determinants of health

Health and social care services in the Havens area of East Sussex are highly valued by local residents, despite the area facing some of the worst health inequalities in the county. The Healthwatch East Sussex Havens Listening Tour in June 2018 realised some of the enormous benefits to be gained from getting closer to local communities, spending more time speaking with and listening to what local people have to say about local services. We were struck by how important the social determinants of health are to local people, in particular the impact of local housing development.

The main issues that local people wanted to talk about were two fold: Firstly, there are concerns in the area over how difficult it is to make an appointment with local GPs. There are also fears that new housing developments planned for the area will make GP appointments even harder to find. Not all the changes that are required to improve access to primary care are attributed to the national shortages of GPs. Practice staff, together with patients, policy makers and commissioners can start to address some of the issues this report has identified. Secondly, many local people are concerned about the lack of local mental health services for both children and adults. Access to adult mental health services and Child and Adolescent Mental Health services is not always meeting the needs of people when they become mentally unwell and that further activity is needed to capture the views and experiences of people living on the margins of society. This Tour enabled Healthwatch to capture rich insight from people in the Havens and with the intelligence we have gathered we will work with local residents to improve their experiences of health and care services and their wider wellbeing.

The comments and completed returns achieved during this activity were not a large sample size, but Healthwatch East Sussex have gained unique insights through engaging with local people who would not have otherwise share their views so openly. Our insight is further enhanced by our engagement with many local agencies and observations on our community transect walks in the area. To ensure all the views, experiences and recommendations are responded to, Healthwatch will present this report to the East Sussex Health and Wellbeing Board, the County Council Health and Care Overview Scrutiny committee and Clinical Commissioning Group to work with partners and monitor how organisations are progressing recommendations made in this report. A further event will be planned in June 2019 to report back to the local community on progress made on concerns they raised, one year on.