Healthwatch North Tyneside Insight Report (Updated) March 2023

This report provides a summary of the key work areas of Healthwatch North Tyneside over the past nine months including, updated from the January report to now include up to February 2023:

• Providing information to local people
  • Living Well North Tyneside
  • Supporting residents to resolve their issues
• Key areas of our work so far:
  • Vaccinations
  • Breast screening (full report summary included)
  • Health inequalities
  • Outpatients and patient initiated follow up
  • Community mental health transformation
  • Social care
  • NHS system change and service user voice
• Key themes in the feedback gathered so far, including key emerging themes from our recent annual survey 2022/23
• Key work coming up for Healthwatch North Tyneside, including:
  • Care homes during Covid
  • Experiences of hospital to home
  • Digital inclusion
  • A new research project into audiology services
  • Analysing and publishing our findings on caring experiences in North Tyneside throughout 2022
  • Analysing and publishing the findings from our annual survey 2022/23
  • A new project around learning disabilities and autism
  • Continuing the mental health transformation project
  • Identify the priorities for the 2023/24 work programme

Some of the issues we have raised with providers and decision makers:

Urgent response to falls – Through the Aging Well board and directly with NEAS we have been raising concerns about long waits for lower priority ambulance calls including trips and falls. This has been an issue throughout the year, with recent pressures on the ambulance system exacerbating the issue.

Continuing health care and care package issues – we have raised individual cases with North Tyneside Council and ICB North Tyneside when people approach us about challenging situations with care packages, delays to services or people appearing to not be getting the quality support they need.

Transport costs and the cost of living – We take every opportunity to raise concerns about transport costs for residents and the impact this is having on people’s health and wellbeing. This includes: cost of taxis for people who rely on them, access to public transport to key services and car parking at hospitals and other key sites. As a result of our feedback, one GP practice has agreed to support necessary taxi costs if a patient is required to be seen at a different site.