Healthwatch Brighton and Hove - Annual Report 2023

Highlights this year

• 45 amazing volunteers contributed an estimated 4,500 hours of their time to support our work.
• 16 reports published, and 34 recommendations made to improve health and social care  - based on your feedback shared with us.
• 56 newsletters and bulletins issued and over 900 social media posts giving you information and updates about services.
• 79 news articles about health and social care shared on our website.

We helped:

• 240 people who contacted us via our helpline.
• We engaged 851 people about GP access and appointments.
• Overall, we engaged with nearly 2000 people this year!

Using your stories to deliver change:

• We visited 95 people in their homes to ask them about the care they receive and their feedback was used to make improvements and appoint new providers.
• We've fed your issues accessing NHS dentistry into a Parliamentary inquiry.
• We've worked to ensure that your ideas to improve Non-Emergency Patient Transport are now reflected in the new contract. 
• We worked with partners to make sure that your views are reflected in the city's new strategies for both Mental House and Digital Inclusion.
• We worked with Brighton and Hove Switchboard to collect and escalate 120 LGBTQ+ patients’ experiences of using health and social care services.
• We escalated your concerns and worked with the Friends, Families and Travellers charity to effectively contribute to the reversal of the plans to close public toilet facilities in the city.
• We worked in partnership with our colleagues in Healthwatch East Sussex and Healthwatch West Sussex on dentistry, GP websites and Long-Covid.
• And much more!

We attended:

• 982 health and care meetings about health and social care services asking questions on your behalf and sharing your experiences so that those in charge understand the impacts of the decisions they make - and put the patient voice at the heart of the changes they make to health and social care.

Award!

In 2022 we were shortlisted for a national award by Healthwatch England for our work supporting patients of New Larchwood GP surgery to overturn a decision to reduce opening hours. We were one of only 8 Healthwatch teams out of over 150 to be nominated.

Our project was "Highly Commended"

Priorities for next year (2023/24)

We will align these to Brighton and Hove's Health and Wellbeing strategy and our Integrated Care System's "Improving Lives Together" strategy. These documents set out ambitious plans to deliver more joined up care and improve people's experiences of the care they receive.

By aligning our priorities, we can ensure that patients' voices will be at the heart of any changes that are made to deliver improved care.

Among our priorities areas are:

• Children and Young People's health and wellbeing
• Improving access to primary care (GPs and dentists)
• Supporting our local Hospitals
• Working to reduce health inequalities

But, we will continue to listen to everything patients tell us and escalate their concerns, even if these are not part of the stated priorities.

As an organisation, we will:

• Work more in partnership with other voluntary and community groups
• Work hard to raise our profile and the impacts of our work so more people share their stories with us
• Continue to challenge and act as a ‘critical friend’ to the health and care system so that they continue to demonstrate how they have used patient feedback to deliver change. We will rely on our independence from the system to achieve this.