News and reports

Diabetes clinic at Sandwell General Hospital gives patients the chance to meet a range of different members of staff who have specialised and have years of experience looking after people with diabetes who can check that they are as healthy as possible and give them highly specialised advice on how to look after their diabetes. Most referrals come via the GP.

Healthwatch Sandwell are aware the challenges people facing regarding getting GP appointments, especially during the pandemic. We would like to capture the other side of GP surgeries, what are surgeries doing to improve the patient experience?

This will help:

• Inform patients about improvements the surgeries are making

• Build relationships with Practice Managers and Patient Participation Groups (PPG)

• Promote PPGs

Healthwatch Sandwell is your local health and social care champion. We make sure NHS leaders and decision makers hear your voice and use your feedback to improve care. We can also help you to find reliable and trustworthy information and advice.

Over the past year we have published 22 reports, engaged with 2,043 people and visited six towns of Sandwell delivering our Guided By You workshops.

Information for our Health Advisory Board Meeting to be held 4th July 2023.

Healthwatch Sandwell (HWS) have the power to visit health and social care services, where health and social care is publicly funded and delivered. This power to Enter and View services offers a way for HWS to meet some of their statutory functions and to collect evidence of what works well. HWS use this evidence to make recommendations to commissioners and providers of health and social care services and to inform changes both for individual services as well as system wide and to improve people’s experiences.

9.9% of the Sandwell population have diabetes, which is higher than the National average at 7.1%. and the West Midlands at 8%. NHS G.P. Practice data 2020-21 for Sandwell indicates an overall upward trend. Sandwell also performs poorly on inter-related health conditions, has lower healthy life expectancy and higher mortality rates from preventable deaths. (Sandwell Trends - Public Health England statistics)

Healthwatch Sandwell would like to collaborate with health, care and support services to ensure patients voices are heard. To help inform and improve services Healthwatch Sandwell would like to hear from Sandwell residents living with diabetes.

Healthwatch Sandwell will be visiting premises throughout 2023. Keep up to date on the latest Enter and View reports on our website or following us on socials media!

Hello May,

Healthwatch Sandwell latest ebulletin.

Healthwatch England published the second piece of research on GP referrals, which was based on the experiences of 1,518 people who have asked for a GP referral for tests, diagnosis or treatment. Nearly one in five (18%) of those people required four or more GP appointments to get a referral. Healthwatch England have called on decision makers to do more to understand the referral process eg. collect national data, and to improve communication with patients.
They secured an exclusive article with the Times to highlight the issue of referral delays.

An overview of the findings of Enter and View visits that took place between January 2022 and March 2023.

Healthwatch Sandwell is your independent consumer champion for health and social care services in Sandwell. Our job is to champion the consumer interests of those using the services and give local people an opportunity to speak out about their concerns. We listen to views, concerns, and compliments about services to help shape and improve them so that people are accessing the most quality and appropriate care.

NHS health and social care services care are legally required to follow the Accessible Information Standard 2016. This includes doctors, dentists, hospitals, pharmacies and social workers.

The Standard sets out a specific, consistent approach to identifying, recording, flagging, sharing and meeting the information and communication support needs of patients, service users, carers and parents with a disability, impairment or sensory loss.

Healthwatch Sandwell have explored with people with disabilities, sensory loss, or impairments whether health and social care services are meeting their information and communication needs as required under the Accessible Information Standard 2016.