News and reports

An independent review of the process to launch a new contract for GP services in the Whitehawk area has been published. As a result of the review's findings, NHS Sussex has announced today that it is stopping the current procurement for a new contract for GP services in the Whitehawk area of Brighton and Hove.

This document describes the health and social care projects that Healthwatch Brighton and Hove will work on over the next year. It also describes internal projects that support the successful operation of our organisation.

Between April 1st 2024 and March 31st 2025, we received 228 enquiries to our helpline. Enquiries were mostly a combination of feedback through our website, emails, phone call messages, and at face-to-face events. Most people were raising concerns or requesting information about services.

The five leading areas of concerns and related complaints raised, in descending
order were:
1. Poor quality of care from a GP.
2. Poor hospital care including ambulance waiting times, treatment waiting
times, A&E, and poor communication of cancelled appointments.
3. Lack of an NHS dentist including emergency dental care.
4. Poor access to a GP appointment, including waiting times for appointments.
5. Social care such as care at home and in care homes.

Some people took the time to make compliments about services.

Healthwatch Brighton & Hove undertook an Enter and View visit to the Emergency Department at the Royal Sussex County Hospital - read about what we found and our recommendations.

This report outlines findings from the second survey undertaken among patients registered at Woodingdean Medical Centre within the last 6 months.

These are the board papers for the Board of Directors meeting held on 14th July 2025. Minutes of the meeting will be published once these have been approved at the October 2025 Board meeting.

We have published our Annual Report covering the period from April 2024 to March 2025, highlighting our work and achievements over the past year. Read how your experiences have helped to deliver real change in Brighton and Hove.

A summary report of our Homecare Check Service from April 2024 to May 2025

In May 2025, Healthwatch in Sussex wanted to better understand the challenges carers face when accessing health and wellbeing services for their own health.

Healthwatch Brighton and Hove regularly evaluates its projects and reviews of health and care services to assess how effectively we have engaged with the general population of the city and its diverse communities. This Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) provides detail on the extent to which this was achieved in the last year. We present equalities data captured from 15 projects, reports detailing our engagement activities, as well as helpline data. These comprise a total of 2,174 responses.

Healthwatch Brighton and Hove conducted visits to various sites run by the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust (UHSx). Eight of our trained volunteers conducted these visits in October 2024.

Our visits to the Royal Sussex County Hospital, the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital, the Eye Hospital and various wards across the estate were part of PLACE or ‘Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment’. This report provides a summary of our observations from the visits. PLACE is delivered as a national programme, and all data is collected and formally analysed by NHS Digital. They will publish detailed reports after the programme has ended.

In April 2025, Healthwatch in Sussex sought people’s experiences of satisfaction with their local NHS services. This included what services people felt most satisfied with, and with which services they felt most dissatisfied.