Your feedback: December 2024

Your feedback: December 2024

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Health and social care feedback December 2024

The top three services we heard about this month were GP services, hospitals and Audiology Services.

Difficulties getting an appointment and quality of care were the biggest issues we heard about for GP services.

For hospitals, the distance to travel to get to an appointment and discharge services were the subjects we heard about most.

Access issues, such as the distance to travel to receive the service and long waits to receive an appointment, were the most common subjects we heard about Audiology Services.

This month’s focus

This month we held our Here to Hear drop-in sessions in Bedlington, Alnwick, Newbiggin and Hexham. December was a shorter month due to Christmas which has contributed to the lower number of contacts this month.

In addition to the Here to Hear sessions we have been to the Meet and Eat session at Allendale and Hexham Auction Mart. New for January 2025 will be our drop-in at Hexham General Hospital on the third Thursday of every month.

We have launched our work looking at Audiology Services, and our joint bid for a research project into Persistent Physical Symptoms was successful. This project will start early summer.

This month’s online talk was from STAMMA, the national stammering charity. The session had a good attendance and was very well received. A recording of the session can be found on our online events webpage.

Impact

A Customer Services Team Leader from Northumberland County Council told us “I have just shared the cost of living booklet, including the foreign language translations, with the team earlier this morning – this is a fab resource for us.”

Negative feedback example

A person told us their elderly relative had to attend hospital in Newcastle. This required a 100 mile round trip from their relative’s house in North Northumberland, with the person having to travel a long way to their relative’s house first to take them there by car.
The relative was seen by a doctor and then discharged, but told by nursing staff the doctor had asked to see them again the next day for a check-up. The person pointed out that this was very inconvenient given the distances, but was simply told that is what the doctor wants.
North Northumberland resident
                  
Positive feedback example

“I’ve been using the Joint Musculoskeletal and Pain Service (JMAPS) since May this year. It’s been fantastic. All of the staff are very busy but always friendly and on time. The physiotherapist I’ve been seeing in particular has been amazing and my care has always been outstanding at every appointment. One of the only health professionals I’ve seen who I have had total confidence in. They have been very professional, caring and reassuring, a real credit to this department.

I would 100% highly recommend JMAPS. I use a lot of different services across several hospitals but this is without a doubt the best care I have received. There has been a definite improvement in care here since I last visited in 2017. A very positive experience.”

Cramlington, Bedlington and Seaton Valley resident

Service providers we heard about and number of times

Newcastle Hospitals (audiology) 9
Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital 3
Wellway Surgery Morpeth 3
Alnwick Medical Group 3
The Gables Medical Group 3
Wansbeck General Hospital 2

Read more in our short summary for December 2024

Feedback November 2024

Feedback November 2024

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Over 100 people contacted us this month, to leave feedback, or use our Information and Signposting Service.

We heard the most about GP services with patients feeling that the quality of care was poor. Patients not being listened to, unhelpful reception staff, difficulties getting an appointment and issues with the online system being the most common complaints. However, just over a quarter of the contacts we had regarding GP practices were positive.

Patients contacted us equally about hospitals and pharmacies. For hospitals the main concern was around poor quality of care plus some feedback about living such a long way from the hospitals.

Almost three quarters of the comments regarding pharmacies were positive and the remaining quarter were concerns around prescriptions.

We continued to hear concerns about the decline in service from audiology services, making up 6% of the feedback this month.

This month’s focus

This month we have been out and about at our usual Here to Hear sessions as well as attending a wellbeing event in Bellingham, an event from Northumberland Cancer Patient and Carer Group in Blyth and the Carers Rights Day event in Morpeth.
We have started researching more into the recent concerns raised around audiology services and held a focus group at Vision Northumberland. We are asking people in Northumberland to share experiences of audiology services.
We continued to promote Northumberland County Council’s Pharmacy Needs Assessment survey and had 1,072 responses in total.
Our online talk this month was from the Macular Society, giving an overview of macular degeneration, the effects of the disease and the advice and support provided by the Macular Society across Northumberland.
Our new mental health support guide was published and free copies are available on request.
Our cost of living information booklet is now available as easy read and also in Arabic, Bengali, Kurdish, Turkish, Spanish and Ukrainian.

Impact

A representative of the Northumberland Stop Smoking Service at Northumberland County Council said “As a result of today’s session (online talk by The Macular Society) I have contacted the Tobacco Dependence Service at the Royal Victoria Infirmary to seek out a contact person for the Opthalmology Department re. referring smokers into our service.”

Positive feedback example

Person’s elderly relative has to attend regular diabetes clinic check-ups at Hexham General Hospital and finds them to be excellent. As the person lives in a remote area on a farm, the staff sometimes travel to carry out checks at the person’s home instead. The person told us that this is extremely useful for times when family are unable to get their relative to the hospital. They are very happy with the service and the care received.

Tynedale resident

Negative feedback example

A caller told us “My relative waited nine months to get a hearing test after being referred by their GP. When they arrived at the clinic in Berwick the nurse/audiologist had forgotten to bring the correct equipment. Today they are still waiting to hear when they have to go back. This is terrible. They are in their eighties and live alone and find it hard to communicate and engage. I live seven hours away and have been trying to find who to call to help get them tested.”

North Northumberland resident

Read more in our short summary for November 2024

Your feedback July 2024

Your feedback July 2024

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The services you gave us feedback about the most this month were hospitals and GP services. Access to hospitals was the main concern, specifically the length of time patients had to wait to get an appointment, followed by communication issues. Feedback around GP services was to do with people feeling pressured to go online to make an appointment or access other services, and poor service generally.

This month’s focus

Our Here to Hear drop-in sessions took place in Alnwick, Morpeth, Hexham, Prudhoe, Bedlington, and Ashington. We also attended the SeaFit event for fishermen in Amble, a North Northumberland Autistic Society support group in Chatton, and Choppington Disability Group’s coffee morning.

Due to high demand an extra 2500 copies of our cost of living booklet were printed and distributed across the county. Plans to produce this resource in six other languages and in easy read are underway.

The Big Conversation launched this month. This is a joint initiative between local Healthwatch and the NHS in the North East and Cumbria, and aims to better understand experiences of women’s health and healthcare.

Our online talk was from Northumberland Joint Musculoskeletal and Pain Service (JMAPS).

Read more in our short report

Getting the most from your surgery

Getting the most from your surgery

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GP surgeries have changed the way they work to meet patient needs and increased demand. There is now a wider range of medical staff at surgeries and different ways to get help such as telephone, video, and online consultations, as well as face-to-face appointments.

Access to GP services is an issue we hear about regularly at Healthwatch Northumberland. In our ‘getting the most from your GP surgery’ booklet we explain more about the range of staff roles at surgeries, different ways to access healthcare and how to make the most of your GP appointment.

Why do I have to tell the receptionist so much about my concern?

Reception staff need to ask enough questions to make sure you get the best appointment with the right person. This may not always be your GP, as there are specialist services that may be more appropriate for your needs, for example, a dietician for
concerns around food allergies or intolerances.

Who might I see at the GP surgery?

Your GP surgery will employ some or all of the healthcare professionals listed below.

Advanced Practitioners: include nurses, pharmacists, paramedics, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dieticians or podiatrists. They can help with a variety of health conditions and can prescribe medication and make referrals to other specialist services.

Clinical Pharmacists: can carry out medication reviews, particularly for long-term and chronic health conditions. Some can also prescribe medication and manage prescriptions.

Care Coordinators: ensure patients have more joined-up care and that their care needs are met, particularly for those who are frail and/or elderly, and people with long-term health conditions

Dieticians: diagnose and treat dietary and nutritional problems, give advice on food and nutrition, and offer support with diabetes, digestive issues, food allergies and intolerances and weight loss/gain.

General Practice Nurses: can do many of the same tasks as GPs. They assess and treat people of all ages, provide wound care, screenings and blood tests, as well as vaccinations. They also offer advice on contraception, women and men’s health issues, weight loss and stopping smoking.

Health and Wellness Coaches: find solutions or lifestyle changes to enable people to lead happier lives. They help people to form a personalised health and care plan to achieve their goals.

Mental Health Practitioners: support people with severe mental health illness to live well in their communities. They can work with patients whose mental health needs cannot be met through, for example, talking therapies, but who may not need care from more specialist services such as psychiatric care. They can often help children and young people as well as adults and can help make referrals to suitable services for support.

Occupational Therapists: work with ill, disabled or injured patients,including those who have returned home following a hospital stay. They help with adaptations to people’s homes so they can continue to live independently.

Physician Associates: work alongside GPs. They cannot prescribe medication but can prepare prescriptions for GPs to sign and can diagnose, order tests and make referrals.

Physiotherapists: work with patients who have joint or muscle problems including those recovering from serious injuries or illness and those with new injuries. They can book scans and tests and are trained to recognise when a joint or muscle problem may be a sign of something more serious. Patients can often make an appointment with a physiotherapist directly themselves (self-refer) or can be referred by a GP or other healthcare professional.

Paramedics: can provide a rapid response to patients with long-term conditions, minor injuries and minor illness. They can supply a range of medicines and support patients who require wound care, have fallen, or have musculoskeletal problems, and can treat some types of infections.

Podiatrists: can diagnose and treat foot and lower leg conditions and provide foot care for short-term or long-term conditions.

Social Prescribing Link Workers: help address the non-medical issues that may be affecting your health and wellbeing. They can connect you to local services and community groups for practical or emotional support.

 

Find out more by viewing our ‘getting the most from your GP surgery’ booklet or download as a pdf.

 

Tell us your experiences of making appointments and visiting your GP surgery.

 

 

 

The value of listening: Annual Report 2023-24

The value of listening: Annual Report 2023-24

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Healthwatch Northumberland Annual Report 2023-24

This year over 12,000 people shared their experiences of health and social care services with us, helping to raise awareness of issues and improve care, or came to us for clear advice and information about topics such as mental health and the cost of living crisis. We published 20 reports about the improvements people would like to see in health and social care services. Our most popular report was Lloyds Pharmacy Enter and View which highlighted the negative impact for patients at the start of pharmacy closures in the county.

How we’ve made a difference this year

  • We drew attention to the impact of pharmacy changes on vulnerable people in the South East of the county
  • We helped the NHS understand why parents in Blyth might attend A&E with a poorly child rather than contact a GP
  • Two young volunteers moved onto higher education with knowledge and experience gained from their time at Healthwatch Northumberland
  • Our website gave people the health information they needed. Our most popular pages were mental health, dementia and LGBT support
  • Our ‘Listening AGM’ enabled members of the public to speak directly to senior decision-makers about the health and care changes they wanted
  • 60 people at our online session heard from the charity Battle Scars about the myths and realities of self-harm
  • We published a guide to help with cost of living pressures and distributed it widely across the county
  • We listened to parents about Health Visiting Services. The provider is now working on an action plan based on our recommendations

Listening to your experiences

Services can’t make improvements without hearing your views. That’s why, over the last year, we have made listening to feedback from all areas of the community a priority. This allows us to understand the full picture, and feed this back to services and help them improve. Our report outlines how we’ve listened to the experiences of local people, including our work to hear from families their experiences of Health Visiting Services, our information on how to get the most from your GP surgery, and how we made sure the views of people living in Harbottle were listened to around a proposal to introduce a mobile healthcare unit in the village.

Hearing from all communities

We have continued to make sure we hear from communities we hear from less frequently. Over the past year we have done this by:

  • Holding monthly drop-in sessions in all areas of the county
  • Hearing from people with learning disabilities about their experiences of health and social care
  • Being part of the Fishermen’s Mission Seafit events at Amble Harbour, bringing services to fishermen, who can find accessing care services difficult due to the nature of their job
  • Working with senior Adult Social Care staff to create the Adult Social Care People’s Advisory Panel
Information and signposting

We can provide confidential and free information to help you understand your options and get the help you need, in line with a ‘making every contact count’ approach. Whether it’s finding a GP practice, making a complaint or choosing a good care home for a loved one – you can count on us. For example, we heard from someone who was having some struggles in their home, and it was unclear what support was already in place. They were unaware of their GP’s Social Prescribing Service, so we referred them on for some help. As a result of this referral and the excellent work of the Social Prescribing Link Worker, the person now has help with weekly cleaning and household tasks as well as receiving a small cash grant for help with heating, some shopping vouchers and other food items to help with the cost of living.

Our online information sessions were a chance for over 250 people to hear from a wide variety of local and national charities and organisations. These included Eating Disorders North East, NECA Gambling North East, Arthritis Action, The Menopause Charity and The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, which spoke about the benefits of strength training.

As we were increasingly hearing about the effects on people’s health due to the rising cost of living, we decided to collate information on different support services that exist in Northumberland and produce a printed ‘cost of living support in Northumberland‘ booklet.

Next steps

Over the next year we will keep working across the county, reaching out especially to people less often listened to, for example, people whose work or lives mean they face difficulties in using health and care services. Thank you to everyone who responded to our Annual Survey and for telling us what you think we should work on next year. You said these are

  • Care in the home
  • Hospital discharge
  • Pharmacy

We will continue to work on GP access, dentistry, mental health and audiology services.

View the Healthwatch Northumberland Annual Report 2024 or download a pdf version.

 

Harbottle update

Harbottle update

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Harbottle mobile health unit proposal

We recently helped Northumbria Primary Care, working with North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board, to hear what local people think of the proposal to move the GP/nurse clinic, which is currently provided from Harbottle Village Hall, into a mobile healthcare unit. A  survey was designed by Northumbria Primary Care, and distributed to patients of The Rothbury Practice, other local residents plus the local councillor, parish council and also more widely. Several meetings and drop-in sessions gave people the chance to ask questions and feed back on the proposal. The results of this can be found in our engagement report. North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board will make the final decision on whether the proposal will go ahead.

 

Harbottle mobile health unit proposal engagement report

What you told us February 2024

What you told us February 2024

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Health and social care feedback Northumberland February 2024

In February there were three main areas of concern, with roughly equal amounts of feedback about difficulty getting an appointment with a GP or a dentist, and the distance to travel and lengthy waiting lists to be seen at hospitals.

There were also a good proportion of positive comments about the good standards of care received from GPs and hospitals.

What did we get up to?

In addition to our usual Here to Hear sessions, we did a number of one-off sessions across the county.Some of these were to support our health visiting services project and we heard from parents and carers at Bellingham Family Hub and Haltwhistle Hub. Other sessions were an opportunity for us to join existing events, such as the CarersNorthumberland group meeting, the Thriving Together network event in Berwick and the Longhoughton Health and Wellbeing event.

We also were commissioned to hear from the residents of Coquetdale about potential changes to primary care services including the use of a mobile health unit.

We held two online sessions this month, from the British Liver Trust and Coping with Cancer. The Coping with Cancer talk was rescheduled from January when we experienced technical issues. The cancer event was very well attended, with more guests than had signed up for the original session.

Find out more in our February 2024 feedback report

 

Caring for carers: Debra’s story

Caring for carers: Debra’s story

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Debra Blakey is the Chief Executive Officer of Carers Northumberland and one of our organisational board members. Debra has been on the board for six years, providing invaluable experience and insight. Debra spoke to us about the work of Carers Northumberland and the important relationship with Healthwatch Northumberland.

Debra says “Carers Northumberland is a charity that aims to improve the lives of unpaid carers in the county. We support unpaid carers of all ages, including adult carers of adults, young carers (aged under 18 years) and parent carers (caring for someone who is under 18 years with additional needs). Unpaid carers sometimes don’t see themselves as carers, as they are often a husband, wife, mother, father, brother, sister, neighbour, or friend, but they are providing vital support to someone who would struggle to manage without their help.

We offer advice, information and support to our 7000+ registered carers. We do this in a variety of ways, including via our telephone information line, carer groups, workshops and training, benefits and financial support, grants to enable carers to take a break from caring, support to navigate social care and health provision, plus trips, events, and activities.

I have worked for Carers Northumberland since 2008 (almost as long as it’s been going!) when I joined as an Administration Officer, and I’ve been in the role of Chief Executive Officer since 2018. I have a degree in Criminology and worked in both private organisations and for Northumbria Police before starting in the voluntary sector at Carers Northumberland. I am passionate about making a difference to people’s lives and having worked for a charity for over 15 years I couldn’t see myself working in any other type of organisation now.

I enjoy reading, going out to eat, and love visiting new places. I’m also a keen runner (well I run so that I can enjoy eating cake) and I believe in the benefits of exercise for mental wellbeing. I actually think I enjoy how good I feel about myself after a run more than the actual run itself.

Probably the achievement I am most proud of is securing funding to pilot a Young Carer Support Service to run alongside our existing service for adult carers.  We launched the service in 2020 during a global pandemic, but it has gone from strength to strength, and we are now working very closely with schools in the county to raise awareness of young carers in education to encourage early identification and provide tailored support.

Carers Northumberland has been an organisational board member of Healthwatch Northumberland since its inception, which highlights how valuable our relationship is. Both organisations are striving to improve the health and social care landscape for service users, patients and their families and carers and we have collaborated on several major pieces of work over the past ten years. Being able to feed the views of carers into Healthwatch Northumberland ensures that the carer voice is heard by key decision-makers in the county is invaluable.“

Carers Northumberland supports all carers of all ages and can be contacted by telephone: 01670 320025, email: info@carersnorthumberland.org.uk or visit the website.

We’re recruiting for board members!

We’re recruiting for board members!

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We’re looking for board members to help steer the direction of our work. We need people from all of our communities and with different skills and experiences to join our board.

Are you:

  • Aware of current health and social care issues, particularly for people with mental ill health, learning disabilities or people who aren’t being listened to?
  • Good at communicating and listening to people from a wide range of backgrounds and with different experiences?
  • Able to use evidence from service users and research to make impartial, practical judgements?
  • Experienced in setting goals and able to monitor how Healthwatch Northumberland achieves its goals?
  • Experienced in working effectively in a collective decision-making group, board or committee?
  • Committed to working in an impartial and independent way to achieve improvements in health and social care services for service users, carers and the public?

Not everyone will have all the knowledge or experiences listed here, so the board operates as a team, blending together what individuals bring.

Board member positions are voluntary and unpaid and reasonable travel expenses are paid. The board meets four times a year.

Would you like to know more? Read our board member information pack.

How do I apply and what happens then?

Please complete the using the Person Specification to tell us about you and why you want to join us. We will use this to decide who to offer an interview.

All applications must be received by 9am on 7 February 2024.

Please note that we may close submissions earlier than this date if we receive a large number of applications.

If a written application is not appropriate for you, an interview-only assessment may be carried out. Please contact Derry Nugent at derryn@healthwatchnorthumberland.co.uk

Invitations to interview will be emailed to shortlisted candidates. The interviews will be held during February/March 2024.

Board member information pack

Board member information pack easy read

This vacancy is now closed.

What you told us: October 2023

What you told us: October 2023

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Health and social care feedback Northumberland October 2023

This month the biggest issue, apart from difficulties getting an appointment at GP practices, has been poor communication by services. This is around prescriptions in particular, and the communication between patient, GP practice and pharmacy. There have also been communication issues with other services either not communicating with the patient or with each other, which has adversely affected the patient.

What did we get up to?

October was a busy month with an increased number of one-off sessions and events on top of our regular Here to Hear events. We were at Choppington Disability Group’s AGM, Blyth Wellbeing event, Silver Sunday and Mental Health Celebration event (also in Blyth), and Alnwick Garden’s Wellness event, all of which have been well attended and have enabled us to speak to many more people than usual.
Our AGM and listening event at East Bedlington Community Centre was well-attended and we received lots of positive feedback from guests.

This month’s online session on self-harm from Battle Scars was very popular, with our highest ever attendance since we began these sessions.

We ran an online campaign asking people to tell us what they think about their local pharmacy which generated a lot of feedback, almost exclusively positive, with many glowing references to Allendale
Pharmacy. This meant that for the first time since we started the monthly reports in July 2022, we received more positive feedback than negative.

Find out more in our October 2023 feedback report