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

  • Mental Health Awareness Week

  • Outreach Round-up

  • The Motherhood Group

  • SLaM Complaints Collaborative

  • Healthwatch Lambeth Strategy
 
A Word from Our CEO, Mairéad Healy

This month, we're focusing on mental health at Healthwatch Lambeth. While the topic has been generally destigmatised in the media and public at large, for many it many it remains a taboo and this is something we want to see changed through greater awareness, better funding and local partnerships. 

With social and healthcare services ever more stretched, it is ever more difficult for those most in need to access the mental healthcare services they need, but it is for this reason that we feel it imperative to highlight the issues facing our borough and its residents. With Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week having taken place earlier this month and Mental Health Awareness Week under way (15-21st May), now is the time to discuss all aspects of mental health. This includes existing inequalities in maternal mental health care, particularly for black women who, as our meet and greet with The Motherhood Group shows, are stark. While we certainly don't have all the answers, we believe we must collectively press for well-funded, person-centred solutions that involve Lambeth residents in that conversation. 

We hope you have a good month and thank you again for your support, 

Mairéad Healy

CEO Healthwatch Lambeth
 
MHAW
Mental Health Awareness Week

To mark Mental Health Awareness Week (15th-21st May) we are organising a free event on 17th May in partnership with Art4space. All Lambeth residents are welcome to join us at this creative and interactive event, exploring the theme of Copying with Anxiety Through Art. The programme includes a short mindfulness session and the opportunity to use art as a way of managing anxiety. Refreshments will be available. Spaces are limited so, please book as soon as you can.
Book Now
 
Outreach Round-Up
Events at Healthwatch Lambeth
April's Events
 

On Wednesday 26th April, we ran a workshop in partnership with Mosaic Clubhouse, a charity supporting people with mental ill health. We visited in order to hear to hear their members’ views on the support they need to get well and lead a full life. This was the first in a series of workshops we want to set up to understand adult service users’ priorities and issues, as their views will inform this year’s Healthwatch Lambeth mental health project. We want to talk to many people as possible. Contact Anna D’Agostino at anna.dagostino@healthwatchlambeth.org.uk to get more information.

We also attended the ‘Effectiveness of Services for Mothers with Mental Health Illness’ stakeholder conference at King's College London on 18th April. Several presentations shared the results of a large-scale evaluation of the effectiveness of community perinatal mental health teams, where clinicians, charity leads and academics discussed the implications for perinatal mental health clinical practice, policy and research. The highlight of the conference was the panel discussion with women who highlighted the variation in care for ethnically diverse women. Additionally, we spoke to many organisations who we hope to work with, moving forward, on our maternity project.
 
Upcoming Events
Lambeth Links workshop
Social Care Workshop

We are very excited to announce our latest workshop, which will take place later this month. Partnering with LGBTIQ+ group Lambeth Links and the Brixton Umbrella Circle, the borough's LGBTIQ+ organisation for older people, we are going to deliver an in-person “Social Care Workshop” on Saturday 27 May from 3pm to 5pm at the Vida Walsh Centre in Brixton. The aim is to provide information and advice on how to access and navigate the complex social care system and its services, and to direct participants to where they can seek further help and support. It's a pilot event, which we hope can be extended elsewhere in the borough if successful. Booking is required and spaces are limited. Details can be found on our events page or you can email info@healthwatchlambeth.org.uk for more information. 
Workshop Details
IRMO
NHS Workshop with IRMO

Following on from our Social Care Workshop, we're running an in-person “NHS workshop” for members of Indoamerican Migrant Refugee Association (IRMO) on the morning of Friday 2 June from 10:30-12. The aim of the workshop is to empower participants to be confident in accessing and using GP and pharmacy services. We will cover finding and registering with a GP, booking a GP appointment, getting the most from your GP consultation, GP Access Hubs, NHS 111, resolving any problems with GP services, and community pharmacies, talking about the range of services they provide and when to use them. If you are a local VCS or community group and would like us to attend your meeting or event to deliver this workshop, please call us on 020 7274 8522 or email us at info@healthwatchlambeth.org.uk
IRMO Workshop
 

Finally this month, on25th May, we're at a Health and wellbeing event at Christ Church Streatham (3 Christchurch Road, SW2 3ET) from 2:00-5:00pm. Join us on the day to share your views about health and social care services, learn more about our current projects, volunteering opportunities and more.

 
Guests at Lambeth Country Show

Next month, we have some exciting events to look forward to and hope to see some of you in attendance. We have a pop-up stall in the Bird Corridor at St Thomas’s Hospital on Thursday 8 June from 10am to 1pm, and  
in the Golden Jubilee Wing at Kings College Hospital (near the helpdesk) on Wednesday 14 June from 10am to 1pm, where we will be raising awareness of Healthwatch Lambeth and advising people with any problems they are experiencing when it comes to accessing and using health and care services.

We will also be gathering feedback on local health and care services – both good and bad. We will be running pop-up stalls at Guys and St Thomas’s Hospitals and at Kings College Hospital once a quarter so look out for forthcoming dates.   

Additionally, we'll be at the Lambeth Country Show on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 June in Brockwell Park. You can find us in the Lambeth Together tent. We'll be there to discuss our work and how we support Lambeth residents and hope that you'll meet us there. Please bring sunshine! 
 
BUTTON
 
 
Hilary from The Motherhood Group
Healthwatch Lambeth Meets... The Motherhood Group
 

Ahead of Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week, we sat down with Hilary from The Motherhood Group in April. The organisation promotes better care for black mothers in the UK. Black mothers are 83% more likely to suffer a near miss during pregnancy and four times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than any other ethnicity. 

Moreover, existing inequalities point to issues around mental healthcare provision and support for black mothers, something the Group wants to see addressed at a national level. 

At Healthwatch Lambeth, we have been busy progressing our Maternity Services project and reaching out to the local voluntary and community groups we would like to partner with. We have received positive responses and will be able to announce our partners in our next newsletter. The project is about engaging with Lambeth women from different backgrounds, communities and neighbourhoods, especially those from seldom heard groups and communities, and hearing their experiences of local maternity services. The overall aim is to improve maternity services for all, making them more accessible, inclusive and of the highest quality.

 
Learn More
 
Looking Ahead
PCN Engagement Project

Healthwatch Lambeth have been commissioned to assist the Primary Care Networks (PCNs) in Lambeth to better engage with their populations. The aim of this project is to improve patient engagement and involvement in service design, with the long-term goal of improving patient outcomes. 

We will be working with all nine PCNs in Lambeth until December 2023. To date, we have met with members of the Advisory Board, including GPs from the area and staff from the ICB.

We also attended the Practice Manager's meeting on the May 3rd to introduce the project and our team and are attending the Clinical Cabinet at the end of May.

Our next step is to make connections with local link workers and VCSE organisations who are already working closely within the Lambeth Community. We are excited about the project and look forward to providing regular updates in future newsletters.
SLaM Complaints Collaborative

We are part of the South London and the Maudsley (SLaM) Complaints Collaborative, and have been working with SLaM and a group of their service users and patients to improve their complaints process.

SLaM has been working on reducing the timescales within which they respond to complaints, and they also want to change their approach to how they respond to complaints.

The Complaints Collaborative is an important part of this change. Its aim is to work towards providing compassionate and honest complaint responses that their community, service users and patients can trust.

We look forward to working with SLaM so they can provide complaints responses which are timely, personal, person-centred, address the concerns raised, and set out a way forward which satisfies the service user or patient who has made the complaint.
Woman at a Healthwatch event
Healthwatch Lambeth Strategy 2023-25
 

After consulting with the public in 2022, we are glad to announce the publication of our strategy for the next three years. The strategy outlines our values, approach and key goals which include reducing health inequalities, making care more personalised, the improvement of quality and access to services and ensuring organisational effectiveness. 

Everything we do at Healthwatch Lambeth we do with the individual in mind. As such, we hope that this strategy will help us all pull together in the right direction for the benefit of all Lambeth residents. If you have any queries or comments about the strategy, contact us at info@healthwatchlambeth.org.uk
 
Read the strategy

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