News and reports

During 2017/18, we have worked on three out of five of our priorities; Timely access to GPs, Going Home and Help in a Mental Health Crisis.

From October 2016 to February 2017 we spoke with 397 local people about what they thought HWS should focus on in 2017/18.

We found through our work on GP access that some people use A&E instead of out-of-hour services which are available if their GP practice is closed.

Following an early report about the experiences of seldom-heard communities in accessing GPs, we carried out a review of GP out-of-hours answerphone messages.

The six Healthwatch in South East London were commissioned to provide independent support to the NHS London region with the evaluation of the Transforming Primary Care Programme's winter communications programme.

In 2016, Healthwatch Southwark were involved in speaking to patients in short stay 'step-down' flats in an extra care scheme after leaving hospital.

Mental health was identified as a priority area for Healthwatch Southwark (HWS) through public and stakeholder consultation.

Over the summer of 2016, we engaged with 114 young people aged 12-23, via workshops and surveys, to find out about their experiences of mental health education and information, access to services, and where they prefer to go for support.

We were commissioned by Macmillan Cancer Support, to run a focus group exploring the different ways the Bengali community access information – where they get it from and in what format and language.

Healthwatch Southwark wanted to understand the experience of local people in the context of the national experience of Trans patients and so started a series of engagement activities.

In 2016, one of our priority areas was social care.

A focus of this has been to look at the quality of nursing care provision, especially after the closure of one of the three Southwark nursing homes in October 2015 (Camberwell Green).

Healthwatch Southwark spoke with Traveller women who reside in Traveller sites in Southwark, of which there are four: Springtide (Peckham), Brideale (Peckham), Ilderton (Bermondsey) and Burnhill (Peckham).