Healthwatch Gateshead Social Care Consultation Event ‘Have Your Say’ on Gateshead Council Budget Proposals 2016 - 2018

Healthwatch Gateshead responded to Gateshead Council's consultation on its proposed social care budget. ealthwatch Gateshead contacted key stakeholders in the Voluntary and Community Sector to ensure that they were aware of the consultation and to understand what action they were undertaking or considering in response to the consultation. This was to establish whether they were aware of the proposals, the consultation timescale and whether they had initiated or had planned to initiate an organisational response. Healthwatch Gateshead also wanted to establish whether they had passed on information regarding the consultation to their service users and service users’ families. In-addition Healthwatch Gateshead wrote directly to those individuals whom it knew are receiving the potentially affected services.  They organised an event which 78 people attended.

Three themes emerged:

• The impact of the cuts on the voluntary and community sector
• The impact on carers
• The impact on service users