Annual Report 2023/24

Healthwatch Barnsley report on its key achievements for 2023/24.  It:

• Influenced South Yorkshire’s NHS planning by holding 13 Community Conversations with underserved communities, ensuring local views helped shape the NHS South Yorkshire Joint Forward Plan and the “It Starts With People” strategy. Around 800 people’s views were fed into planning across South Yorkshire.
• Raised awareness of hygiene poverty and the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, highlighting how people were cutting back on medication, dental care and other essentials. Findings contributed to national recommendations from Healthwatch England on prescriptions, dentistry and healthcare travel costs. 
• Established a dedicated Adult Safeguarding Engagement role, reaching over 1,350 people through 134 events and directly supporting residents to raise safeguarding concerns. The success of the work secured funding for a further year. 
• Influenced future intermediate care and reablement services by gathering feedback from former users of the Acorn Unit. Findings were shared with Barnsley Hospital’s Urgent and Emergency Care Board and used to inform redesign of urgent care pathways and future service development. 
• Highlighted barriers to accessing NHS dentistry and presented local evidence to South Yorkshire dental stakeholders, ensuring residents’ experiences informed discussions about improving dental services. 
• Worked with NHS England, Healthwatch England and South Yorkshire partners on inequalities affecting the Deaf community, helping secure action to improve awareness among opticians of their responsibility to provide British Sign Language interpretation support. 
• Influenced service improvements through direct casework and partnership working, including improving access to urine testing in primary care and ensuring people with lived experience helped shape Barnsley Hospital’s new Care Partner Policy.