Your care during covid

Healthwatch Cambridgeshire and Healthwatch Peterborough launched a Covid-19 survey on 28 May 2020 to find out how changes to health and care services were affecting the local residents.

The report highlights how disruption and delays to services is affecting people’s health and wellbeing- this includes access to cancer treatments, hospital appointments, GP services, dental treatments and struggles for people with loved ones in care homes and hospices. It also highlights the issues of health inequalities for those with disabilities, especially for people whose needs have not been met under the Accessible Information Standard. Nearly one third of people told them that the pandemic has had a high or significant impact on their mental health and wellbeing- some struggled to access the care they needed. The report also looks into the experiences of parents-to-be and new parents, people living on their own- especially older people, people with sensory disabilities, and the challenges that carers and family have faced.

Three out of four people who used the health services rated it highly and have shared their accounts of what services had done to help them stay safe and get the care they needed. The report has identified the key learnings based on the feedback gathered via this survey. Healthwatch recommend that the organisations providing and organising health and social care take these learning points into account when planning and delivering services.