Our documents
Being Happy, Being Me report published in Mental Health Awareness Week
Posted on 09/05/2017
New report looks at young people’s attitudes and understanding of mental health in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
Young people tell us what they think about the language that is used to describe mental health, what their experiences of services have been and how they would like to get help if they need it. The Being Happy, Being Me project has been undertaken to help local commissioners re-design young people's mental health services.
We found that young people can be confused about the words we use to describe mental health and well-being. Words like thriving and resilience were not commonly understood. More needs to be done to address issues around stigma and encourage young people to understand that mental health is something we all have and need to nurture.
As part of our project, we spoke to over 500 young people at four secondary schools in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Around one in seven of the young people who shared their thoughts with us told us that they have had experience of using mental health services. They also shared with us some of the things that would help make mental health support work well for them.
This project is part of a programme of work with young people to help local health and care commissioners understand what will help young people keep emotionally well and cope with difficulties in life.
It was funded by Cambridgeshire County Council, Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group. They are working together to develop a new way of providing mental health care for young people, called ‘I-THRIVE’.
Enter and View report - Addenbrooke’s Emergency Department, Clinical Decision Unit and Ambulatory Care Unit
Posted on 28/02/2017
‘Staff are helpful and caring’. That's the main message people told us when we visited Addenbrooke's Hospital in early December.
We spoke to more than 50 people on two separate visits to the hospital, spending time in both the adult and children's areas of the Emergency Department, as well as the Ambulatory Care Unit and the Clinical Decision Unit. The visits were done using our power to Enter and View. This is Healthwatch's legal right to visit places that provide publicly funded health or care, to see and hear how people experience those services.
Our report makes seven recommendations to the hospital to improve care; these are based on what we observed and what patients told us about their experiences. These recommendations have been accepted by the hospital, who have developed an action plan to address them. This includes:
- Reminding staff about the importance of ensuring people’s privacy and dignity, after we told them about patients not being adequately covered up whilst they were waiting on trolleys in the X-ray department.
- Initiating extra cleaning checks at busy times of day after we spotted some areas where cleaning needed to be improved.
- Asking staff to update waiting screen times every hour, so people know how long their wait is likely to be. They are also investigating adding another screen in the main waiting room.
We will check with the hospital again in six-months’ time, to see what progress they have made against our recommendations.
Unannounced Enter & View Visit to Hinchingbrooke Hospital Emergency Department
Posted on 22/12/2016
Hospital staff are friendly but the Emergency Department (ED) can be very busy and patients aren’t always getting the privacy they need.
In October, our volunteers made two visits to the ED at Hinchingbrooke Hospital to listen to local people’s experiences. The visits were ‘unannounced’ and were done using our power to Enter and View. This is Healthwatch's legal right to visit places that provide publicly funded health or care, to see and hear how people experience those services.
Our report makes eleven recommendations to improve care; these are based on what we observed and what 64 patients told us about their experiences. These recommendations have been accepted by the Trust who have developed an action plan to address them.
Hinchingbrooke Hospital Emergency Department Enter and View report Hinchingbrooke Hospital Action plan (appendix five)
Healthwatch calls for improvements in local wheelchair services
Posted on 11/08/2016
The wheelchair service is often poorly co-ordinated, with people waiting too long for wheelchairs and repairs says Sitting Comfortably, our new report published today.
This report tells the stories of more than 80 local people who use wheelchair services in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. The service provides chairs to meet the often complex individual needs of adults and children who are unable to walk, or who have a long term disability that makes walking difficult.
Sitting Comfortably is a result of joint work with Pinpoint, Cambridgeshire Alliance for Independent Living, Healthwatch Peterborough and Family Voice.
Local wheelchair services are planned and paid for by Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), who will be re-tendering these services. They have welcomed our work to listen to wheelchair users and their carers. We want local wheelchair users and their carers involved in any re-tendering process, so they can help make sure the service specification meets their needs.
The service is currently contracted to an organisation called Provide, who assess people and provides their wheelchairs, and Bartrams who help to maintain the chairs.
Sitting Comfortably makes three important recommendations to improve services:
- To set and meet clearer response times for people who use the service.
- Better co-ordination between different parts of the service.
- Be more responsive to the individual needs of wheelchair users and their families and carers.
We have sent our report to Provide, Bartrams and the CCG, so they can respond to the recommendations we have set out to help improve wheelchair services.
Annual Report 2015-16
Posted on 29/06/2016
This annual report tells the stories of how we have helped local people shape services and the difference our local Healthwatch has made.
The year was difficult at times, with our local health and care system experiencing some major challenges: Addenbrooke’s Hospital going into special measures as a result of a poor Care Quality Commission inspection; the collapse of an innovative contract to integrate Older People’s and Community Services; and ever-increasing pressure on budgets.
This year we have
- Listened to hundreds of local people all over Cambridgeshire, online and face to face, visiting those not always heard by decision makers.
- Asked questions when the older people’s health and adult community services contract collapsed in December after only 8 months.
- Continued to ask questions about the length of time older people were waiting for care assessments, the Council told us they had hugely reduced this by January 2016.
- Published our “Our Health Matters”, a summary of what local Gypsies and Travellers have told us about their health needs. We asked local health and care organisations to pledge to make care better for local Gypsies & Travellers.
- Visited 13 local care homes, to see and hear what it is like to live in a care home in Cambridgeshire. We wrote reports and made suggestions to improve care in each of the homes. Real changes have been made as a result of our visits.
- Worked with Ely College to involve over 100 young people in a conversation about mental health services, and published our My Own Mind report about this work. This helped influence what new mental health services for children and young people look like.
- Published our "First Steps to Health" report into local GP, pharmacy and NHS 111 services.
- Won a national Healthwatch Award for ‘Working with the Care Quality Commission’.
- Continued to work with our 23 fantastic volunteers; they have helped us listen stories, visit local services and even run workshops to help professionals understand local people’s experiences.
Healthwatch visits Addenbrookes outpatients
Posted on 20/06/2016
In March 2016, our volunteers visited Addenbrookes Hospital to talk to people about their experiences of outpatient appointments. This is something the hospital asked us to help them with, to help improve people’s experiences of care. We visited three outpatient clinics, and talked to more than 200 people.
After our visit, we shared what we found out with the hospital. As a result, they:
- Have changed and improved the signage throughout the outpatient clinics.
- Have arranged for a drinks and snacks trolley to visit the outpatient clinics.
- Are looking at different ways of contacting patients about appointments. This includes text messaging and email. They are also looking at introducing a patient portal, so people can manage their own appointments online.
- Are piloting an outpatients’ helpline in a number of clinics.
- Are looking at our other ideas for improvements.
Addenbrooke's Dermatology clinic Addenbrooke's ENT clinic Addenbrooke's Ophthalmology clinic Addenbrooke's Summary Report
Thriving report published 18-05-2016
Posted on 18/05/2016
Children and young people want mental health support that is meaningful and relevant to them. This is one of the main messages children and young people have for local mental health organisations, in a new report published by Healthwatch Cambridgeshire.
We are publishing Thriving, our report into children and young people's mental health, today to co-incide with Mental Health Awareness week 16 - 22 May.
We wrote Thriving to help make sure children and young people are listened to by the people making decisions about mental health services for them. The report is already helping to inform the re-design of local mental health services.
We were asked to do this work to help the Emotional Health and Wellbeing Board for Children and Young People redesign mental health services for children and young people. They are developing a new way of providing mental health and wellbeing support to young people which is more about what young people need. The Board includes Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council.
