How are you feeling? campaign report

How are you feeling? Linking with young people in Northumberland

Like many organisations, Healthwatch Northumberland wants to be better at hearing directly from young people about their experiences of healthcare. In spring 2023 we developed a campaign with the help of young people, entitled ‘How are you feeling?’ to gain an insight into the actual state of children’s and young people’s health and wellbeing in Northumberland.

The project was led by our high school student volunteers. They designed and piloted a survey, an explainer video and promotional materials as part of the campaign to ensure it was attractive to young people. We worked with secondary/high schools and colleges in the county to promote and distribute the survey to their students, and also promoted the campaign more widely. An accessible version of the survey was also made available.

Who did we hear from?

We had a total of 651 responses from young people aged between 13-24 years old. Most of the respondents to the survey were aged 13-15 years old. Over two fifths of the respondents were aged 13 years with just under a fifth of the respondents aged 14 years old and approximately a fifth were aged 15 years old.

Conclusions

Based on the findings from our campaign, those young people of Northumberland aged between 13 – 15 years old are generally happy in themselves. Respondents to our accessible survey were even happier overall than the respondents to the main survey. Both sets of respondents also feel happy with the service provided by the NHS but there were concerns about the length of waiting times. However, there was some ambiguity in the answers whether that was the length of time spent on a waiting list to receive an appointment or the length of time spent waiting at an actual appointment.

Read our report: How are you feeling? Linking with young people in Northumberland.