Year: 2015

On Wednesday March 11, Peter, our volunteer co-ordinator attended the Swiss Cottage Library, care and support information day.The event’s aim was for local organisations to find out about care and support services available to the wider community living and working in Camden.

Families of children with special educational needs and disabilities told us that they’re worried that the provision of short breaks may be affected by the budget cuts that Camden has to make from 2015. Cuts in the region of £94,000 and a further £190,000 by 2017/18 are proposed.

Local people told us that it can be difficult communicating with GP practices if you are either visually impaired, d/Deaf or hard of hearing or have learning disabilities.So we’re conducting a series of focus group discussions and interviews to find out more about the experiences of these groups of services users. Also to learn what improvements can be made to ensure they can access the services to which they are entitled.We’re producing a report

 Last year, for our ‘GP complaints procedure report’, a Healthwatch Camden mystery shopper visited all of Camden’s GP practices to investigate how easy it is to make a complaint should a patient wish to do so.We found out that a lot of practices had good complaints procedures in place but some needed improvement.We wrote to every practice explaining what we found. In cases where improvement was needed, we recommended corrective action.

Last week at Healthwatch Camden 

Healthwatch Camden wants to reduce inequalities in health and social care services. We’re aware that black, minority ethnic and faith communities can face particular difficulties in accessing health and social care services.That’s why we’re working with local community groups to organise focus group discussions in mother tongue with a wide range of different BME people who live in the borough.

Local planning of health and social care services should include people from all communities and ages. Too many people across the country feel excluded.One of our core principles is to champion equality. We want equal access, treatment and outcomes for all communities in our local area. So get involved and have your say.  

Enter and Viewing is an important part of the way Healthwatch’s work.We need deaf people (BSL users) to visit and report on premises where health and social care services are used by residents, for example, hospitals, GP Practices and care homes.

We’re organising focus groups with BME communities in Camden to help us identify the themes and challenges they face in accessing health and social care services.Some of the focus groups are in mother tongue so that we don’t exclude anyone – every voice counts.We know that the health outcomes for Camden’s BME residents is relatively poor compared to other communities. The feedback we get from our focus groups will let us know where further research and action is needed.

 Volunteers are our lifeblood. They help us to find out what local people think and want in terms of health and social care in Camden.So in mid-January we attended the Volunteer’s Fair at the Arlington Centre, to see if we could entice more local people to volunteer for us. A volunteer’s Fair is a community hub where organisations can engage with local people interested in volunteering.