‘You Said – We Did’ – August 2024

Our activity in August 2024

You Said:

We heard from an enquirer who’d recently had a fall and felt increasingly unsafe in their home incase they fell again. They wanted to know what their options are for getting help.

We Did:

We they could self-refer to Health and Social Care Connect for an assessment which may lead to household adaptations or support. We also identified the opportunity to access free home safety visits from East Sussex Fire and Rescue.

You Said:

We heard from a parent who had tooth pain, but had been unable to find an NHS dentist for herself and two children, since their previous NHS dentist removed them from their list.

We Did:

We shared information of the Sussex Dental Helpline and additional NHS urgent dental sessions that offer to treat people who have an urgent dental need, but have not been able to register with an NHS dentist.

You Said:

We heard from a family whose child hadn’t received their Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) assessment in a timely way, leading to lack of support and educational exclusion.

We Did:

We provided details of the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information, Advice and Support Service (SENDIASS), which provides online information and individual advice. We also sought and shared advice from colleagues in ESCC Children’s Services.

You Said:

At an outreach event, an individual told us they had failed to attend hospital appointments due to being unable to afford the travel expenses.

We Did:

We told them about the NHS Healthcare Travel Cost Scheme, which enables those on a low income and in receipt of certain benefits, to reclaim travel expenses to hospital or outpatient appointments.

Our Contributions and Interventions

• We engaged with NHS Sussex about the impacts of GPs announcing Collective Action and what this means for patients as well as other services. We shared concerns over the potential effects of limiting appointments to 25 per clinician per day and changes to e-referral mechanisms, especially given existing challenges in accessing timely appointments at some practices.
• In partnership with other Sussex Healthwatch, we shared feedback with NHS Sussex that patients seeking to use Non-Emergency Patient Transport Services (NEPTS) were being told the eligibility criteria had changed and they were no longer able to use the service. We supported the development of clear and simple messaging to enable the NEPTS provider to ensure users were made aware of the changes.
• In August we met with Healthwatch, Advocacy and NHS colleagues to explore how people’s experience of leaving feedback or making complaints to NHS organisations in Sussex can be improved. Healthwatch called for both processes to be simple, clear and accessible to all, and for complaints to be responded to in a meaningful and timely way. Clearer feedback on learning and changes made by services in response to feedback/complaints was also called for.
• This month we received several enquiries related to Right-to-Choose, which is patient’s right to choose where they are treated by the NHS, with people telling us they faced challenges including clinicians declining requests to be treated elsewhere, being unclear on the process for such referrals, or indicating decisions lay with the Integrated Care Board. We shared this feedback with NHS Sussex with view to achieving greater clarity and consistency in delivery of Right-to-Choose.

Tell us your experiences of local health and care services

We always want to hear the experiences of local people when they use health and care services.

You can share your experience by leaving a review on our Feedback Centre at any time and tell us how things were for you. What was good and what could be improved?

You can also share your experience or seek further support with health and care enquiries from our Information & Signposting service via:

Email: Enquiries@healthwatcheastsussex.co.uk

Telephone: 0333 101 4007 Monday – Friday (10am-2pm)