Healthwatch North Tyneside reflects upon the achievements and challenges of a year like no other

THE independent champion for health and care in North Tyneside reflects on what has been a difficult year for users and service providers in its latest annual report, and sets out its priorities for the year ahead.

In what was an unprecedented year, Healthwatch North Tyneside stepped up to the mark delivering not only its core charitable aims, delivering health and care information and making sure people’s voices were heard, but also responded to the pandemic by supporting local people and rethinking the way it worked.

The organisation responded to the challenges that were presented by increasing online engagement, delivering information and surveys though people’s doors and working with others. It found new ways to engage with people, such as at GP led vaccine centres – an amazing opportunity to reach people across the borough.

Healthwatch North Tyneside led on a number of successful information campaigns and was integral to the development of the Living Well North Tyneside partnership, an initiative to provide residents with information on local health and wellbeing groups and services.

The report sets out Healthwatch’s plans and priorities for the coming year, based on the key issues people in North Tyneside said mattered to them.

Healthwatch will continue to provide useful information and the development of Living Well North Tyneside; focus on people’s access to GP and primary care services; investigate the impact of service changes aiming to identify gaps that exclude parts of the community; continue to hear the voices of service users. As always, the organisation will monitor and respond to health and care issues as they arise.

Teresa Ho, Performance and Corporate Development Manager, North Tyneside Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said:

“North Tyneside CCG and Healthwatch have worked hand in hand on the COVID-19 vaccination programme since it started in December 2020.  Having to work at pace to deliver the programme for our communities, we really used the strength of Healthwatch’s advocacy role. We were able to identify patient issues and were able to learn from patient experiences quickly and efficiently to make sure improvements were made.

“Together we built up a wider trusted health network across North Tyneside to share patient communications, so that residents were informed about the vaccination process, had a central point of contact for queries and issues and that they could also share their patient stories. It’s been a privilege to work with Healthwatch on the vaccination programme and to help improve the long-term outcomes of our residents.”

Julia Charlton, Chair of Healthwatch North Tyneside said:

“Healthwatch is here to improve health and care services for the people of North Tyneside. We’ll continue to listen to the experiences of those using services and then act on what has been learned.

“I’d like to thank our volunteers who make a huge difference to our work. We simply couldn’t do what we do without them. I’m also grateful to the staff team and my fellow trustees for their hard work and dedication to improving local health and care services.”

You can download the report here.

To make best use of limited resources, the report will not be printed but if you would like a hard copy, please contact us on 0191 2635321 or email info@healthwatchnorthtyneside.co.uk.