Our Priorities for the Year Ahead
Healthwatch Westminster is working towards an important mission of improving health and social care services across our borough, empowering residents to speak out on issues of importance to them.
During 2024, we will expand work on some of our main priorities, such as assessing mental health care and provisions, removing barriers to access, and strengthening community outreach. Most importantly, we hope to widen our connections with community partners and residents’ groups, and devote increasing attention to groups that are seldom heard.
Through our work, we intend to give a fair representation to the many voices and concerns of residents in our borough, providing them with a platform to share their views on health and social care.
Digital Inclusion of vulnerable groups
From the feedback we have received from our community partners and the data we gathered during previous projects, digital exclusion has emerged as a key area of concern for some residents. Digital exclusion and lack of digital literacy can pose a barrier to healthcare access for elderly, migrant, and non-English speaking populations, often worsening pre-existing health inequalities.
Throughout the next quarter, we will be working on a project to understand the lived experiences of vulnerable and digitally-excluded groups, as well as the key factors and barriers to healthcare access caused by digital exclusion. We hope that our findings and recommendations will help health providers tailor their services to the needs of these vulnerable users.
Joint Project: Step Down & Intermediate Care
Imperial Networked Data Lab (NDL) has collected large amounts of patient data exploring challenges and issues with intermediate care services across North West London, and identified key concerns and areas where more information and patient voices are needed.
Working in partnership with them, we will carry out engagement and conduct interviews to supply them with qualitative data, and facilitate a better understanding of the issues patients and their carers may be facing.
The aim of this joint project is to amplify and raise awareness of patients’ and carers’ voices regarding intermediate care experiences and concerns, while highlighting key barriers and challenges to quality provision of services. Through the research process, we also hope to strengthen our relationships with patients’ and carers’ groups in the borough.
Homelessness & Mental Health
At present, Westminster is the British local authority home to the highest number of people who are homeless and rough sleepers.
Healthwatch Westminster is working on a project to identify the mental health needs of people experiencing homelessness and evaluate the gaps in current mental health provisions. Our aim is to amplify and raise awareness of the mental health needs of Westminster’s homeless communities.
By drafting recommendations for improving access to primary mental health care, we hope to provide local services with valuable information that can help them make their services more appropriate for homeless communities. We will also continue to raise public awareness on the importance of mental health support for those who are homeless.
Cost of living & community outreach
The on-going cost of living crisis risks exacerbating pre-existing health inequalities, as it affects people’s ability to access various health and social care services, as well as nutritious food and heating.
Over the coming months, we are planning to widen our community networking by running a series of in-person engagements and outreach activities across the borough. Our focus will be on the impact of the cost of living crisis on the quality of life and health of residents.
Gordon Hospital consultations
In 2023, we published a report registering residents’ and professionals’ views on the proposed changes to acute mental health services and in-patient beds in the bi-borough.
Over the year ahead, we will continue to monitor the outcome of these consultations. We aim to continue sharing our input in the ongoing consultations by representing the various voices from the community that may be affected by these changes.
