We listen to what local people think of health and social care services and share their views with professionals to make services better.
We help local people to find the health and care services and support that they need.
We run, co-ordinate and support events, projects and activities and make sure we have strong networks so we can engage with our local community effectively.
Engaging communities, shaping services in which people’s health and social care needs are heard, understood, and met.
Through this we can help shape health and social care services and identify and deliver tailored services to provide support and engagement to those communities most underrepresented.
This vision will mean that:
Communities are engaged and active in their own health and social care provision, being an integral part of delivering services ensures the services are responsive to community needs and can highlight emerging issues, themes and trends before an emerging trend becomes a serious health or social care issue.
One of our main roles is to gather patient views and experiences from residents of the borough of Waltham Forest. Without knowing what you think of health and social care services, we cannot speak up for you!
Our online feedback centre allows people to tell us directly about their experiences of health and social care in our borough. However, our main source of feedback is from online sources such as Google Reviews and NHS Choices website. We can augment this with additional experiences from our outreach and engagement programme. The patient experience data is input into the Community Insight System (see here) and we can identify services to watch, themes and trends in our quarterly reports. This helps us to work with NHS North East London and Waltham Forest Council in order to share and celebrate good practice and focus on where improvements are needed. Without the input from patients and the information from the research our volunteers collect we cannot improve services.
You do not need any qualifications to volunteer with us. Just a willingness to listen and talk to a range of individuals, an open mind, and a desire to raise the voice of local people.
We believe that everyone is unique and has something valuable to contribute, from sharing life experiences, skills, and knowledge, to untapped talent and the willingness to make a real difference in society.
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Our Opportunities
As an Enter & View volunteer, you will collect evidence of what works well and what could be improved in health and social services to improve people’s experiences. Healthwatch can use this evidence to make recommendations and inform changes.
