Healthwatch Camden wants to make sure that planning of our health and social care services includes people from all communities and ages.To this end, Shelly Khan, our Community Engagement Manager is on the steering group of the Social Participation Pilot which works on BME mental health around the challenges and opportunities for BME mental health engagement and behaviour change.The Social Participation Pilot is working on three key areas:○ Black men – Barber Footy Competition – promoting healthy minds and tackling stigma.
Read MoreDuring October Healthwatch Camden organised a workshop with the Race Equality Foundation, called ‘How can you help to address health inequalities?’ Shelly Khan our Community Engagement Manager attended the workshop.Local planning of health and social care services should include people from all communities so that services meet our community’s needs. Healthwatch Camden wants to reduce inequalities so we make sure that we speak to members of our community who feel that their voice is not being heard.
Read MoreDuring October and November we conducted ‘enter and views’ in Camden’s seven care homes for older people. We worked with national charity Independent Age to test their new 10 Quality Indicators for care homes and also had invaluable help from our volunteers.The views of people living in residential care often go unheard in the delivery of our health and social care services, so we’ve made it one of our priorities to make sure that they and their carers’ have a say.
Read MoreOn Monday 21 November 2016 we held our Annual General Meeting and Community Forum at the Arlington Centre. It was well attended and included our staff and board of Directors.The event provided an opportunity for Healthwatch Camden to hear from our stakeholders and from the local community. We were pleased to welcome and introduce our new trustees, Jessica Warne and Sanjay Ganvir who are an invaluable addition to our team.
Read MoreWe’re working with the older people’s charity ‘Independent Age’ to produce reports that people can use to find out more about the quality of care homes in Camden. We’re keen to hear what you think of our new reports – your voice can have real influence.We want to know if you think that our reports answer the questions you have about care homes. Tell us what you like and dislike, we want to hear the good bits and what you think can be improved. There’s a £20 Love2Shop voucher for everyone who takes part.
Read MoreAs we mentioned in a recent blog, the NHS is working on Sustainability and Transformation Plans. These have ambitious aims of improving everyone’s health, improving the quality of services and stopping the cost of healthcare from going up. So local health leaders (and some local government leaders) have been getting together to make a plan.
Read More