News and reports

The 'Hospital Transfer Pathway' or 'Red Bag' scheme, pioneered by Sutton Homes of Care, is designed to make emergency hospital visits safer for care home residents and to speed up discharge.

Healthwatch want to know about your experiences.

Kooth, is a new online counselling service for children and young people aged 11-19 access to free, anonymous mental health and emotional well-being support.

Health issues unfortunately don't leave us alone at the weekend and people are often in need of medical assistance out of hours. Using NHS guidelines, we have provided some advice and information on where you can go for help when your GP is closed.

Five people and groups have been shortlisted for a national award that celebrates local people who, through their dedication, have helped improve health and care for their community.

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.

The number of people being cared for in their own homes is increasing but what should you expect from home care services?

A year ago the Accessible Information Standard came into force. It requires any organisation providing NHS or social care to communicate in a way that everybody can understand. Here's a reminder of what you should expect.

We know from our conversations with the public that some patients report feeling rushed during appointments and struggling to make themselves heard. Here are some tips that could help you get the most out of visiting your GP.

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.