• Question: If some one is treated badly at a hospital or care home etc what do you do to help the person, or make it right

    Asked by anon-228656 to Amber on 10 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Amber Cronin

      Amber Cronin answered on 10 Nov 2019:

      I work at Healthwatch England, which receives information from the Local Healthwatch (there are 152 across the country, all with names related to their region- for instance, Healthwatch North Somerset or Healthwatch Birmingham). When someone has a bad experience and they tell their Local Healthwatch, they will make sure they can provide any support the person wants or needs- such as helping them to make an official complaint. The Local Healthwatch will then send me the information about the person’s experience.
      When I read about negative issues, I look for patterns across the data (which is the information that all the Local Healthwatch has sent me). Has this negative experience happened to more than one person? How bad is it? Is anything being done about it in terms of laws or policies? Does it happen all across the country or only in some areas? This way I can get a better understanding of the issue. I then write up all this information and present it to other teams in the organisation. If it is agreed to be an issue we can raise awareness of or help to improve, we then communicate this information to the public in our official reports or to parliament.
      For example, I worked on a project where I provided a brief to our Policy team about the lack of skills and training dentists had for treating people with learning disabilities. Our Policy team then used this to present in parliament for a Lords debate and a Baroness table (things I don’t really know what they mean, but my Policy team told me it was a great thing!), which raised awareness of the issue to lots of influential politicians and groups that make sure the government is held accountable for healthcare issues. As a result of this, they promised to hold a full on inquiry about dental services to make sure we can improve how people with learning disabilities get treated when they go to the dentist. Very rewarding stuff!

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