The team at independent consumer champion Healthwatch Torbayhas been commended in the annual National Healthwatch Impact Awards, recognising outstanding work that uses local people’s views to improve health and care support.
In the running against 18 other shortlisted projects, the health and social care champion team for Torbay was commended for their work on helping to improve care for local people.
The National Healthwatch Impact Awards recognises outstanding examples of where the views of local people have been used to make positive changes to local NHS and social care services.
This year, to recognise the ten year anniversary of Healthwatch, the award reflected on an improvement to people’s care that has resulted from a local Healthwatch’s work at any point over the past ten years, and work that still benefits people today.
The team at Healthwatch Torbay were commended for their work highlighting concerns about local domiciliary care, which led in 2017 to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) placing the care organisation into special measures until improvements were made.
At the time Healthwatch Torbay were invited to raise their social care concerns and offer key recommendations nationally during an accountability hearing with the CQC and the Government’s Health Select Committee.
They now have regular meetings with the local authority, commissioners and local CQC lead inspectors and continue to work with key service users to monitor improvements to ensure the voice of local people is listened to.
Reacting to the national award, Dr Kevin Dixon, Chair for Healthwatch in Devon, Plymouth and Torbay said:
“Our staff and volunteers work so hard to find out if health and care services are working for local people and, if they are not, to try and get services to fix the issues.”
“So, finding out that our work has been commended nationally is a real pat on the back. However, we can’t do anything without local people coming forward to share your views, so this is not just great news for us but also for everyone in Torbay.”
“I’d especially like to thank the service users themselves for raising their concerns with us throughout this piece of work, the importance of local people speaking out cannot be understated.”
Commenting on the news, Joanna Williams, Director of Adult and Community Services in Torbay said:
“This is fantastic news and a real testament to the joint working relationship between Healthwatch and local social care providers and commissioners, It’s a relationship we are committed to and very grateful for.
At the time Healthwatch Torbay’s input was invaluable and allowed us to re-commission new services for local people based on the learning that they provided. They continue to be a key part of service user co-production and involvement so that we don’t get back to that situation again. I congratulate them on winning this nationally commended award.”
Commenting on the award, Louise Ansari, Chief Executive of Healthwatch England said:
“The team should feel really proud. Our awards recognise outstanding work that makes a real difference to local people, and the competition this year from across England was very high.
“Being recognised is also a testament to all the local people who were prepared to speak up and the health professionals who listened. It just shows what can be achieved when we work together to improve care.”
For more information please visit www.healthwatchtorbay.org.uk, email info@HWDPT.org or call free on 0800 520 0640.
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