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!
Speedy referrals vital for the wellbeing of those living with dementia
A speedy diagnosis, and being able to access specialist support quickly, makes a great difference to the wellbeing of people with dementia and their...
Still time to share your views on the future of BAGH ward 6
There’s still time for you to share your thoughts with us on the future of ward 6 at Bishop Auckland General Hospital. We’re gathering feedback on...
Wards taking better care of people's hearing aids after calls to our team
Last year, our information and signposting team noticed a spate of calls from patients in University Hospital North Durham (UHND) complaining that...
Improvements being made to wards following our Enter and View visits
Marianne Patterson, our project lead, recently attended a meeting of the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust patient experience forum and was excited to hear a lot of talk about the Enter and View visits our team has carried out at the trust's main hospitals together with Healthwatch...
Shining a light on transitions services
Young people's transition from children's to adult services could be improved if teaching about transitions was included within all nursing training programmes. That's just one of the recommendations we are making for how to improve transitions services based on information we have gathered from...
Project to seek views on the future of Ward 6
Healthwatch County Durham has been asked to gather the views of patients and the public regarding the future of Ward 6 at Bishop Auckland General Hospital. You may remember our updates before Christmas when the potential closure of the ward was first reported. Many people contacted us at that time...
Last chance to have a say on GP appointments
The Clinical Commissioning Groups in County Durham have asked us to look into how well the new "care navigation" service in GP practices is working. Care navigation is the system where trained, non-clinical staff talk to patients when they ring to book an appointment, providing information about...
What we'll be working on next...
Learning disabled supported living and young people's take-up of pharmacy services are just two of the areas of health and social care our team will be looking at over the next 12 months. Our priorities for 2019-20 were decided at a meeting of our Healthwatch County Durham Board in January. All the...
Shining our spotlight on hospital services
We've been busy gathering information about patient experience on a number of wards at University Hospital of North Durham. The aim was to help County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust improve the quality of services by identifying areas of good practice that can be shared between wards...
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 patients of vascular services and members of the public with information about how vascular services will operate in County Durham and the changes that...
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 accessing GP appointments . More than 500 people from across County Durham shared their experiences of accessing GP appointments with us for our research...
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 mid-November to mid-December was told that they’d be automatically added to our free prize draw, and in with a chance of winning a luxury food hamper,...
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...
