How your stories have helped to improve services
Healthwatch Brighton and Hove collects patient and service user feedback.
This feedback can be your stories, experiences, concerns, or even ideas, about health and social care. We do this all year round and receive input on a wide range of topics.
In this report, we describe what we have been doing with some of the feedback submitted over this last year. It’s through your submissions that we are empowered to act and to seek changes and improvements to services in the local area.
What we achieve on your behalf is delivered by six staff members and over 30 volunteers. It’s also thanks to other local organisations who we work with, including Switchboard, Sussex Interpreting Services, Friends, Families and Travellers, Bridging Change, the Trust for Developing Communities and many more. And it’s also thanks to our colleagues in Healthwatch West Sussex and Healthwatch East Sussex, our partners at local hospitals, NHS Sussex, and Healthwatch England.
We’ve gathered your feedback by attending public and partner events, through surveys, face-to-face and telephone interviews, focus groups, social media and via our Helpline which is available online and over the phone.
Between the 1st January to the 31st December 2024, our patient engagement has included:
221 enquiries to our helpline (phone calls, feedback through our website and emails). The majority of people were raising a concern or complaint about a service but some people also sought advice and guidance about health and social care services.
The five leading areas of concern which we are closely monitoring are:
- Poor hospital care including waiting times and poor communication around appointments – 48 comments
- Poor quality of care from a GP – 41 comments
- Difficulties getting appointments with a GP – 18 comments
- Long waiting times for planned care – 17 comments
- Lack of an NHS dentist – 17 comments.
23 people also made compliments about the health and social care they had received.
Between April and September 2024, Healthwatch Brighton and Hove staff and volunteers attended six events, speaking to 120 people with many of these people completing our engagement form to share their experiences of health and care services. You can read more in our engagement report - here.
