News
Check here for the latest news and updates, which we'll add below. For a monthly summary of what's happening, take a look at our e-bulletins and sign up to receive our e-bulletin direct to your email every month!
Changes to vascular services in County Durham
Together with Healthwatch Darlington, we are hosting events on behalf of NHS England about vascular services. The events are intended to provide...
GP appointments: what you told us
Having difficulty contacting GP practices by telephone is one of the main causes of concern among patients highlighted by our new report into...
Winter 2018 prize draw
With help from advertising in Durham County News, our event work and social media outreach, anyone that signed up to our monthly newsletter during...
Pharmacy opening times over Christmas & New Year
We have attached a list of pharmacies across County Durham that have provided opening times for Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day. This information is shared with you in good faith but we are not able to monitor it for any changes. Our recommendation is to confirm with the individual...
Update: Bishop Auckland General Hospital ward 6
Many people contacted us in October with concerns about the reported closure of ward 6 at Bishop Auckland General Hospital. As promised, we have continued to press County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust (CDDFT) for clarification of their plans. We have been communicating with Sue Jacques...
Thank you for signing up...
Back in September we announced that anyone that signed up to our monthly newsletter would be automatically added to our free prize draw and in with a chance of winning £50 in LOVE2SHOP vouchers. The response was overwhelming and lucky Mel Pounder from Wolsingham was randomly selected as our winner...
Would you like Healthwatch County Durham to visit your community group or organisation?
We deliver outreach within the community providing everyone with an opportunity to ask us any questions about health and social care services. We provide information & signposting ensuring everyone gets the right support from services. We can bring our pop-up information stand or, alternatively...
Making engagement more meaningful
Many health and social care providers talk about “engaging” the public when developing their services but what does this really mean? The truth is, it isn’t always clear and often when providers or commissioners refer to “engagement” they mean different things. While some just gather patient...
Improving 7-day access to primary care - have your say
NHS Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield clinical commissioning group are proposing to change seven-day access to primary care services and would like your views on their plans. Primary care services are the "front door" of the NHS and include GPs, pharmacies, opticians and dentists. The...
Bishop Auckland General Hospital ward 6 concerns
Many patients and members of the public have contacted us with concerns about the reported closure of ward 6 at Bishop Auckland General Hospital. Be assured we are taking these seriously and have written to County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust to ask for more details, including an...
Sign up for a last chance to win
Sign up to receive our monthly e-newsletter before 16 November 2018 and you will automatically be entered into our free prize draw to win a £50 LOVE2SHOP voucher. Our monthly bulletin brings all the latest health and social care news from around the region direct to your inbox. It also keeps you up...
We won!!
We're thrilled to announce that one of our volunteers has won a national Healthwatch England award for the work he has done with our team to make it easier for families to find a care home. Tony Bentley, from Seaham, was presented with the #ItStartsWithYou award at a ceremony on Wednesday 3 October...
Research into cancer screening making an impact
We are continuing to work hard to make cancer screening programmes more accessible in County Durham. Recently, we brought together some of the key organisations involved in cancer care to talk to them about our recommendations for how barriers to screening could be reduced. All our suggestions were...
Care home website goes live
We are excited to announce that our project to improve care home websites has taken a big step forward. One of our volunteers, Tony Bentley, has been working closely with Kaydar , a local care home, to develop a best-practice website for care homes… and now the result of all their hard work has...
Durham County News
The team at Healthwatch County Durham are thrilled to partner up with Durham County News. You’ll see our advert featured on the back cover of the Autumn edition, and your copy will be dropping on the door mat anytime between 3rd September and 14th September. Healthwatch County Durham - your free...
Project started by Healthwatch volunteer Tony is shortlisted for a national award
We’re excited to announce that two of our recent projects have been shortlisted for a national Healthwatch England award. Our work with vulnerable women around access to health screening and our project to improve local care home websites have both beaten off stiff competition from other local...
Vacancy: Outreach Officer
We currently have a vacancy for an Outreach Officer (22hrs) - fixed term until June 2019. Healthwatch County Durham Outreach Officer Located: Healthwatch Meadowfield Office with significant outreach Scale/Salary: PCP Band 3 £17,957 per annum, pro rata Hours: 22 hours per week Fixed Term: Until 30th...
"Speed-dating" and speeches at our annual meeting
Spennymoor Leisure Centre was the venue for our annual meeting on 27 June 2018, with breakfast, speeches, surveys and “speed dating” sessions the order of the day. More than 50 people joined us from public and voluntary sector health and social care organisations , along with volunteers and members...
Do you think mental health services are working?
When we asked you what you’d like us to work on next, you told us mental health services were one of your biggest priorities – and now we want to know more! Effective, timely support is vital to help people with mental health problems manage their conditions. Recent governments have promised to...
New data rules mean you need to tell us if you’d like to stay in touch
There’s always something happening in health and social care, so each month we produce an e-newsletter to help you stay up-to-date. It comes direct to your inbox with news of our own work plus local events, initiatives and chances to have your say on services. As you might already know, data...
Come to our annual meeting
On Wednesday 27 June we will be hosting our annual meeting at Spennymoor Leisure Centre and we'd love to see you there. It's a great opportunity to find out more about the work we are doing and to meet our team. The meeting will run from 9am-11am so this year we will also be providing breakfast!...
Cervical screening - your feedback
Earlier this year we asked women in County Durham to share their experiences of cervical screening (smear tests) with us. Our aim was to identify ways the screening programme could be improved to encourage more women to take part, as currently around one in four women don’t attend when invited...
What should we do next? This is what you said...
Throughout February and March, we asked you to decide the health and social care services we focus on in our work this year by rating six options in order of priority. More than 600 people took part in the vote, either online, by post or by speaking to one of our roving volunteers. The votes have...
Learning from women’s experiences of breast screening
According to recent figures, almost one in four women in County Durham do not attend breast screening when invited to do so. Regular breast screening can help identify breast cancer early – and the earlier the condition is found, the better the chances of surviving it. So, we’ve been trying to find...
Offering GP's an independent view on services
GP practices are the frontline of health services, so it’s important they work well for everyone who needs them. That’s why we’re offering all GP practices in County Durham the opportunity for us to visit them and speak to patients independently about how they find their services. The idea is to...
Getting results for stroke patients in service shake-up
We’re pleased to announce that the local clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have accepted all the recommendations we made in our recent report about the design of new stroke services. This report was based on the views of more than 150 service users and family members and so this should help...
Help us reduce barriers to cervical screening
It is estimated that cervical screening (smear tests) prevents up to 75% of cervical cancers from developing* - however, 1 in 4 women aged 25-64 don’t attend for screening when they are invited. A recent survey suggests reasons for not attending nationally include embarrassment about body shape and...
Easy-read health check letter launched for people with learning disabilities
Young people and adults with learning disabilities who need more health support are entitled to an annual health check. However, accessing services isn’t always easy, so we’ve been working with service users, the region’s CCGs and Durham County Council to reduce barriers to people having these...
