Giving a voice to people who need it most

Healthwatch Calderdale and Healthwatch Kirklees reviewed their feedback over the last two years and realised there were gaps in their insight. They set out a plan to reach those people to hear their voices so their experiences could be shared with providers and commissioners of health and care services.  During November 2022, their engagement team focused on speaking to people with disabilities across Kirklees and Calderdale about their experiences of health and care services.

This revealed six common themes:

• Access and quality of care Issues with GP’s, doctors, nurses and particularly people stating they felt that reception staff created a barrier to care.
• Frustrations with breakdowns in communication between the doctors and patients as well as disconnect between health services.
• Insufficient or poor quality support. Many people and carers feeling they had to push to get the support they needed and the lack of preventative support was frustrating.
• Poor staff attitude, lack of care with regard to disability. This was compounded by feelings that appointments and interactions felt rushed which is unsuitable for disabled people’s needs.
• Problems accessing mental health support and a lack of long term support versus crisis support. Once in support many people felt that the staff lacked compassion.
• Issues with information being provided in clear and concise ways. Additionally a lack of knowledge about some conditions and requests for staff training were prominent in the data.

People’s stories and experiences are vital to making changes in health and care services and their ideas include:

• A ‘one stop shop’ health centre for children with long-term conditions.
• Clinic times suitable for individuals as people with a long term health condition need to factor other appointments in.
• Use patient preferred communication methods, such as email or text messaging.