Community Healthcare for Young People Focus Groups

In the autumn of 2020 Healthwatch Northamptonshire was asked by Public Health Northamptonshire and NHS Northamptonshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to carry out some focus groups with young people to find out more about their views and experiences of community health and wellbeing services. Healthwatch Northamptonshire held three focus groups at schools with 36 young people aged 11 – 16 in September 2020.

Young people said that being treated by friendly staff in clean environments was important to them and that the person treating them should show confidence and know what they are doing and respect their privacy. Young people did not always feel involved in the care that they received, but when they, did it was a positive experience.

 Overall young people did not want to receive healthcare services online. They were also not keen on receiving health messages digitally through targeted advertising although some did say they might click on a targeted advert link if they needed help at that time. There were concerns around receiving care online, such as online safety, security, confidentiality and not knowing who could be trusted, as well as about the level of care they would receive. Most young people still wanted to receive healthcare services face to face. They wanted to see more opportunities for outdoor exercise, such a skate parks, and there were some suggestions for improvements to current services, such as shorter waiting times.

Recommendations centre around the need for service providers and commissioners to work with young people locally to ensure that services meet the needs of the local population.