Healthwatch Awards 2020: Shortlist announced

What are the Healthwatch awards?

The annual Healthwatch Awards celebrates the difference our 4,400 staff and volunteers have made over the past twelve months by:

• Finding out what people like about health and social care support, and what could be improved;
• Helping people find the information they need about services in their area; and
• Encouraging those in charge of NHS and social care services to make the changes that communities would like to see.

Who is in the shortlist?

This year, 30 local Healthwatch have been shortlisted across three award categories.

The impact our team makes

This award celebrates the collective impact of one local Healthwatch team, in delivering a project that supports improvements to health and social care services. 

• Healthwatch Central Bedfordshire, for making older people more aware of local services that can help them live healthier lives.
• Healthwatch Cumbria, for supporting a local town council understand how they could improve health and social care for residents.
• Healthwatch Kent, for work that resulted in significant improvements to a local wheelchair service.
• Healthwatch Leicester, for helping an NHS hospital understand how they could improve their patient discharge process.
• Healthwatch Leeds, for helping to improve access to mental health crisis support.
• Healthwatch Lancashire, for supporting care home residents to have their views heard and improvements they would like to see adopted. 
• Healthwatch Sunderland, for the advice and information they offer to help people find the right care home.
• Healthwatch Staffordshire, for research highlighting the problems patients face when discharged poorly from a hospital.
• Healthwatch Stoke-on-Trent,  for empowering pregnant women, mothers, and their family members to have a voice on pregnancy and maternity services.
• Healthwatch Tower Hamlets, for helping to improve access to GP appointments for patients.

The impact we make with partners

This award celebrates the impact a local Healthwatch team has made when working with another local Healthwatch or other partners.

• Healthwatch Bucks, for working with veteran groups to raise awareness of their rights to access local services.
• Healthwatch Bedford Borough, for providing health education to local people in friendly, non-clinical settings.
• Healthwatch Camden, for research with other organisations to understand the social infrastructure used by older Bangladeshi residents.
• Healthwatch Hillingdon, for work with schools to help deliver mental health and wellbeing training to students.
• Healthwatch Norfolk, for work with NHS and community partners to make sure that residents had their say on plans to change primary care services.
• Healthwatch Thurrock, for a project to reach out to survivors of sexual abuse to make sure their experiences helped inform the future approach of local services.
• Healthwatch Salford, for a campaign with Deaf people to raise Deaf awareness amongst NHS and social care professionals.
• Healthwatch Sefton, Healthwatch Knowsley, Healthwatch Liverpool, Healthwatch Wirral, for helping to improve the local approach to safeguarding adults.
• Healthwatch Stockton-on-Tees, for a project with care homes to improve the  residents' quality of life.
• Healthwatch Wiltshire, for work with charities to find out how public feedback was used to make local dementia services and support better.

Celebrating our volunteer team

This award celebrates the vital role that volunteers play in contributing to the success of our work.

• Healthwatch Central Bedfordshire, for the work of their young volunteers, visiting children's wards to identify improvements patients would like to see.
• Healthwatch Darlington, for their young volunteers work to raise awareness and improve the provision of information about young peoples mental health services.
• Healthwatch Dorset, for local young peoples efforts to raise awareness in schools and beyond about what it is like to live with Type One Diabetes.
• Healthwatch Doncaster, for the work of volunteers in A&E to understand people's experience of accessing emergency care out of hours. 
• Healthwatch Hillingdon, for the work of young volunteers to review the local sexual health and reproductive service and communicate their findings.
• Healthwatch Isle of Wight, for the work volunteers did to identify issues with inpatient mental health services by analysing feedback and visiting services
• Healthwatch Leeds, for the creative approach volunteers took to communicate the problems people with a visual impairment face accessing care.
• Healthwatch Northamptonshire, for two volunteers, who visited 50 wards at a hospital to find out the experiences of patients.
• Healthwatch Surrey, for volunteers who helped improve the way a local NHS hospital reports incidents of poor care that have led to severe harm or death.
• Healthwatch Staffordshire, for volunteers whose work in visiting GP surgeries helped to address the difficulties people experienced in getting GP appointments.

In a personal message to our staff and volunteers, Sir Robert Francis QC, Chair of Healthwatch England, said:

"I never stop being inspired by your dedication to making care better for your communities.

"Whether reaching out to those whose views are not being heard, helping people to find the support they need or making sure NHS and social care services act on the improvements that the public want to see, the award entries highlight the difference you make.

"I would like to congratulate everyone who has been shortlisted. You have done your communities proud."