. Healthwatch Lambeth News - January 2023
Championing what matters to you
Championing what matters to you
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Healthwatch Lambeth
 

Healthwatch Lambeth is your health and social care champion. We listen to what people like about services and what could be improved. We share those views with NHS leaders and care providers to make change happen.

Our highlights:
 

  • A Word from our CEO

  • Celebrating 10 Years of Healthwatch Lambeth

  • Partnership

  • Impact

  • Listening to Your Views

  • Engagement Round-Up

  • Looking Ahead
 
Mental Health in Lambeth
 
A Word from Our CEO, Mairéad Healy

It's an exciting time at Healthwatch Lambeth. Spring is finally here, and we're also celebrating 10 years as an organisation. During this time, we've been reflecting on the impact we've made over the past decade. 

Last year, we contributed to the borough’s efforts to improve uptake of the Annual Health Checks (AHC) and COVID-19 vaccine among people with learning disabilities, autism and severe mental illness, and also helped start a new programme with colleagues at South East London CCG (now South East London ICS) and Lambeth Together to make sure decisions taken by Primary Care Networks take full account of patients' perspectives and experiences.

This has helped to create a more person-centred approach to care, and we will continue to press for changes that put the patient first. Our work has not been without its challenges, but by focussing on local impact, we've been able to foster real improvements on behalf of Lambeth residents. 

Looking ahead, we're excited to see our Maternity Project get off the ground in the coming months and will be publishing our Annual Report soon. 

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all our local partners and volunteers for your support over the past ten years. We look forward to working together to face the challenges ahead. 

Mairéad Healy

CEO Healthwatch Lambeth
Celebrating 10 Years of Healthwatch Lambeth
Partnership

At Healthwatch Lambeth, we've been fortunate to work with some fantastic partners over the past decade. Here's what some of them have to say about our work together. Thank you for your contribution and we look forward to working with you in the years ahead.

Andrew Eyres - Strategic Director, Integrated Health and Care
Lambeth Council; Dr. Di Aitken - GP and Clinical Lead for Lambeth Neighbourhood & Wellbeing Alliance; Cllr Jim Dixon - 
Co-Chair of Lambeth Together Care Partnership Board: 

"It has been great to have Healthwatch Lambeth as a key partner in our Lambeth Together partnership for the past decade, empowering residents to have their voices heard about their experience of health and care services in the borough, their aspirations and worries. Looking ahead, this work becomes even more important as Lambeth Together partners are committed to working with our communities to address the health inequalities that persist in the borough. In doing so, we know we will need to work ever more closely with the communities we serve."

Merlin Joseph, Strategic Director of Children's Services: 

“Lambeth Children’s Services have worked closely with Healthwatch Lambeth... and we have welcomed their input in supporting us to understand the needs, experiences and concerns of our children, young people and families who our services are in contact with to ensure we learn, respond and develop to better meet their needs. This has included Healthwatch Lambeth working with our children’s social workers to have a focus on improving the timeliness of initial health assessments for our looked after children."

 
Impact
Projects

We undertook three key projects in 2021/22 aimed at improving people’s experience of health and social care services. These included working with Lambeth Together to improve the experience of people moving from child to adult mental health services; creating a new local partnership to improve access to information about annual health checks for people with disabilities and, finally, supporting the Adult Safeguarding Board to make improvements to the way that they consider service user views.
Have Your Say

More than 700 people came forward to share their experiences with us. This was vital in raising awareness of health and social care issues and for improving care for all.

Moreover, over 160 came to us seeking clear advice and information about topics such as mental health and COVID-19. 

We regularly update our information & advice pages to ensure Lambeth residents have accurate, evidence-based, clear information about health and social care. 
Listening to your views
 

At Healthwatch Lambeth, it's always been important to us to listen to your views and hear about your experiences of health and social care. This not only gives Lambeth residents a voice, but has also led to tangible change. Here are just a few examples. 

Adrian's Story

A father of two young children, Adrian was upset by council delays in repairing damp, which he believed contributed to his childrens' asthma. We referred him to Lambeth’s housing team, raised the issue of health hazards to the children, and linked him with Children’s Services and his local councillor at the time. The council later repaired the leak.

Mental Health in Lambeth

Last year, we spoke to young people about their experiences of mental health services, and reported our findings to the Living Well Network Alliance (LWNA), the collaborative group of statutory and voluntary mental health and care services in the borough. As a result, they recruited staff to coordinate support for young people moving from child to adult mental health services. We hope this will improve young people's experiences of moving across services and will follow up to check that this is the case.

Vaccination Rollout

Healthwatch Lambeth responded to a call to raise awareness of the COVID-19
vaccination programme in Lambeth. There was growing concern about people not having access to reliable information about the vaccine and its efficacy, as well as when and where they would be able to access it. Working with NHS service partners and a voluntary organisation supporting people with disabilities, we hosted two events in January with 85 people to raise awareness of available vaccines and how it was being rolled out in Lambeth.
Engagement Round-Up
NHS Workshop for Ukrainian Refugees

In March, we partnered with the Refugee Council to run an online “NHS workshop for Ukrainians”. The aim of the workshop was to empower participants to be confident in accessing and using GP and pharmacy services. We covered finding and registering with a GP, booking a GP appointment and many other topics. 

Participants found the workshop - a pilot - useful and as it has proved successful we will be rolling it out to other voluntary and community groups.

If you are a local VCS or community group and would like us to attend your meeting or event to deliver this presentation, please call us on 020 7274 8522 or email us at info@healthwatchlambeth.org.uk
Pop-Up Stall at King's College Hospital

We ran a pop-up stall at Kings College Hospital (Golden Jubilee Wing) on Thursday 23 March (morning). We promoted Healthwatch Lambeth, raising awareness of our services, gathered feedback on health and care services, and provided information, advice and support to Lambeth residents with problems accessing and using health and care services.

Thank you to everyone who spoke to us, and to those who travelled in especially to see us. Your views count, and make a huge difference to residents throughout Lambeth. 

We will be running this pop-up stall at Kings once a quarter so please look out for forthcoming dates on the Healthwatch Lambeth, or on our Twitter feed. 
 
Looking Ahead
HWL Maternity Project
Healthwatch Lambeth Maternity Project
 

We have been busy planning our Maternity Services project and on Wednesday 29 March we met up with the other organisations working on this project – Healthwatch Greenwich, Creating Ground, and Yewande103. It was good to discuss ideas and to share experiences and expertise. We will be reaching out to voluntary and community groups we'd like to partner with on this project. We want to explore women's experiences of maternity services by engaging with Lambeth women from different backgrounds, communities and neighbourhoods, especially those from seldom-heard groups and communities. The overall aim is to improve maternity services for all, making them more accessible, inclusive and high quality.

 
Maternity Project
 
Mental Health
 

We are currently planning a new mental health project and will hold a series of workshops with Lambeth mental service users to gather their views on their issues and priorities to get well and the improvements needed in the care they receive. The first workshop, on Wednesday 26th April at 2:00pm, is in partnership with Mosaic Clubhouse, a charity that supports people living with a mental health condition in Lambeth. We would like to host more events. If you are interested in collaborating with us on this, please contact Anna at anna.dagostino@healthwatchlambeth.org.uk  
 
Next month, we are marking Mental Health Awareness week (15th-21st May) by co-hosting an event with Art4space, an organisation that delivers creative workshops and projects to empower communities. The interactive event will be on Wednesday 17th May (2:00-4:00pm) around the theme of ‘Anxiety and what you can do to prevent it'.
Volunteering
A Thank You to Our Volunteers
 

Finally this month, we would like to extend our gratitude to all the volunteers that have helped us over the past decade. Thank you for everything you have done to help improve services in Lambeth. We look forward to continuing our work with you in the years ahead. 

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