Healthwatch County Durham celebrates its first anniversary with cake and collaboration! We launched our first annual report at a fantastic showcase event on Wednesday 14th June in Durham, with high profile guest speakers, a highly competitive quiz, the premiere of our ‘Volunteer Vlogs’ and a delicious afternoon tea. Healthwatch County Durham has been delivered by a partnership of Pioneering Care Partnership, Citizens Advice County Durham and Durham Community Action since July 2016 and has had a very successful year.
The event showcased some of this work including; speaking to 100 people with learning disabilities about barriers to having their annual health check, the comments cards we have sent to every new recipient of a care package in Co Durham and the 34 residents of eight care homes for people with learning disabilities we spoke to as part of Durham County Council’s (DCC) review process. Our guest speakers showcased four great projects in more detail. Gail Linstead, Head of Engagement and Primary Care Development for Durham Dales and Easington (DDES) Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) spoke about the contribution HWCD staff and volunteers made to their Urgent Care consultation in 2016 and Dr Jonathan Smith, the Clinical Chair of DDES shared what a great experience Silverdale Family Practice had had during our Enter and View visit.
He said ‘in our opinion the Enter and View visits are a great way to break down barriers, give practices an independent view on the success of their service and help them highlight areas for improvement. We would recommend an Enter and View visit to any practice’. Tony Bentley, a Healthwatch research volunteer talked passionately about his experience of putting himself in the shoes of a relative looking for information about one of the 134 care homes in Co Durham, the challenges he faced and the suggestions we have made to providers and Durham County Council to make this process easier for people. We launched our survey looking at people’s awareness and experience of pharmacy services at the event and Greg Burke, Chief Officer of the Local Pharmaceutical Committee spoke about how much he is looking forward to working with Healthwatch and the importance of getting, and learning from, the views of service users.
Cllr John Clare attended and referred to the ‘professionalism and accessibility’ of the event in his blog post which he wrote straight after! http://bit.ly/HWCDAGM17 Our volunteers had the last word, when we premiered their film at the end of the event during ‘Afternoon tea at the Healthwatch Movies’, talking about the great work they have done this year, giving 620 hours in just six months! Brian Jackson, Chair of HWCD said ‘what a fantastic event, I can’t wait till next year!’
