Championing what matters to you - Our Annual Report 2021-22
Our year in review
Reaching out
- Nearly 16,000 people shared their experiences of health and social care services with us, helping to raise awareness of issues and improve care.
- Over 5,726 people came to us for clear advice and information about topics such as mental health and COVID-19.
Making a difference to care
- We published 71 reports and spotlights covering the improvements people would like to see to health and social care services, and service updates.
- Our most popular report was Adult Autism Assessment demonstrating the Impact on peoples’ lives of unsupported autism because of assessment delays for young and older adults.
Health and care that works for you
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We’re lucky to have 60 volunteers, who gave up over 390 days to make care better for our community.
- We’re funded by out local authority. In 2021-22 we received: £321,417. This figure includes other services in addition to Healthwatch, which is 1.5% more than the previous year.
- We currently have 8 staff (FTE 6) who help us carry out this work.
How we’ve made a difference throughout the year
Our biggest projects between April 2021 to March 2022.
Spring
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Focusing on information, from running advice lines, to supporting GP practices In communicating their new ways of working.
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We urged a practice to publicly update on the issues from moving to a different clinical system and how they could support patients.
Summer
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Teaming up with community partners we created new understanding for exploring men’s attitudes to health and the inequalities this may lead to.
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We quickly alerted the Council to the growing concern over the affordability of existing adult social care support, and supported people to have their concerns looked at.
Autumn
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We urged the NHS 111 services to be clearer when booking people into A&E, that the time was for arrival and not when they would be seen and for A&E reception staff not to refer to ‘appointments’.
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We made sure that people living with a loss of eye sight or hearing were heard and their needs understood. Plus, we are working to make sure that people are well supported by eye care services in Sussex.
Winter
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To understand why some people really struggle to access local GP-led services, we’ve worked collaboratively with regional colleagues and NHS teams to shape our conversations with staff and patients.
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Throughout the year we’ve been supporting the Sussex programme to improve children and young peoples’ emotional and mental health by pushing to have young people involved strategically, as well as service development.
