How are you feeling? Linking with young people in Northumberland

This is a report by Healthwatch Northumberland. The project aimed to improve engagement with young people in the area.

The project was led by high school student volunteers. They designed and piloted a survey, an explainer video and promotional materials, as part of the campaign to ensure it was attractive to young people. Healthwatch Northumberland worked with secondary/high schools and colleges in the county to promote and distribute the survey to their students, and also promoted the campaign more widely. Volunteers were provided with paper copies when required but most students completed the survey online. An accessible version of the survey was also made available online and as a paper copy.

A prize was offered for the school/college with the highest proportion of student responses and students who took part had the chance to enter a prize draw to win a voucher.

In total 651 young people aged between 13-24 years old took part.

Based on the findings from this campaign, these young people of Northumberland aged between 13 – 15 years old are generally happy in themselves. Respondents to the accessible survey were even happier overall than the respondents in the main survey. Both sets of respondents also feel happy with the service provided by the NHS but there were concerns about the length of waiting times. However, there was some ambiguity in the answers whether that was the length of time spent on a waiting list to receive an appointment or the length of time spent waiting at an actual appointment.

There are no recommendations in this report.

There are no follow up actions in this report. However it will be shared with commissioners.