Get involved with Healthwatch Sefton
Healthwatch Sefton exists to make health and social care services work for the people who live in Sefton or use services based in Sefton. Everything they say and do is informed by their connections to local people. Their main aim is understanding the feedback and concerns of people of all ages who use services, and to speak out on their behalf.
Their role is to ensure that local decision makers and health and social care services put the experiences of local people at the heart of their work. By asking people more about their experiences and encouraging them to feedback can identify issues that, if addressed, will make services better.
How you can get involved
Why not become a community member and find out more about the work of Healthwatch and how you can have a say? To find out more Healthwatch Sefton, call 0800 206 1304 or visit the website
Share your experiences of healthcare
You can share your experiences of local health and care services directly on the HealthWatch Sefton website, where you can also read comments from other people who have used these services too.
Complaints support
Healthwatch Sefton can help you make a complaint about any NHS service and provides a free, confidential and independent service designed to help you understand your rights and make informed choices. The service can help you to:
- Explore the options available at every stage of the complaints procedure
- Provide confidential support from someone who is independent of the NHS
- Write effective letters to the right people
- Prepare for meetings and maybe even go with you
- Contact and speak to third parties if required
If you do not need the support of the Healthwatch fully trained advocate but want some advice on the best way to make a complaint, Healthwatch can send you some self help materials which will support you to make the complaint.
To find out more about how they can help you please contact us on 0800 206 1304 or visit their website.
How we work with Healthwatch Sefton
We work with Healthwatch Sefton to hear what local people have to say about services we commission. To ensure that local voices are heard, the Chair of Healthwatch Sefton has a non voting seat on our Governing body and the manager of the organisation is a member of our Engagement and Patient Experience group. Healthwatch also has representation on our general practice commissioning forum, which we hold with our colleagues from NHS England.
Locality representatives
Healthwatch Sefton locality representatives are people who volunteer their time to ensure local residents ‘Have their Say’ in the health and social care services they receive. Locality representatives cover the same geographical areas as our GP practice localities. Locality representative responsibilities include acting as a point of contact for residents living in the local area, informing Healthwatch Sefton of any issues local residents are experiencing in relation to health and social care and attending Community Champion network meetings. They attend our GP practice locality meetings and share updates with on key themes for each locality area and hear about emerging issues from a practice perspective.
Community Champion networks
Healthwatch Sefton is all about building relationships with communities and to help them do this they have developed two Community Champion Networks.
- South and Central Community Champion network
- Southport and Formby Community Champion network
Both networks are made up of voluntary, community and faith (VCF) sector organisations and groups along with local health centres, children centres and libraries who work with local communities. Through the community champion networks, they are able to bring together the voices of many groups and the expertise of local organisations in engaging with local residents. The Community Champions raise awareness of our goals and help local residents to ‘Have Their Say’ in the design and delivery of health and social care services.
We regularly attend these meetings to update on a wide range of issues including developments in local medicines management work, updates on diabetes initiatives and patient participation groups.
The networks have recently changed the way in which they work and they now focus on key themes. We worked with both networks to engage on the review of urgent care services and throughout the year we will be attending meetings to discuss issues such as GP extended hours and podiatry services for example.
