‘You Said – We Did’ March 2025

Our activity in March 2025 included:

You Said

We spoke to an individual referred via the Right to Choose for an ADHD assessment who was unable to access treatment from the same service. The individual was referred to another provider with a nine month wait.

We did

We explained how some Right to Choose providers only assess and diagnose patients, and do not offer treatments. This should have been explained to the individual at the point of referral. Due to this we also provided complaints advice.

You Said

We heard from an individual who was unhappy with their diagnosis as their condition had not improved following treatment. They wanted to know how they could request a second opinion.

We did

We provided information from The Patients Association with advice for requesting a second opinion for a medical condition.

You Said

We heard from a resident of a Mental Health facility who was concerned about the ward not having enough staff trained in first aid.

We did

We provided information on how to share their experience with the service and how to share feedback with the Care Quality Commission. We also provided details on how to raise a safeguarding concern with Adult Social Care if appropriate.

You Said

An individual contacted us to find out if there was a physiotherapy service they could access for the back pain they were experiencing.

We did

We shared information about the East Sussex Musculoskeletal(MSK) Service and highlighted that patients can self-refer for physiotherapy without needing to see a GP.

Our Contributions and interventions

• We visited an East Sussex Recovery Alliance drop-in session to tell staff, volunteers and clients about Healthwatch and our information and signposting service, and supported people with their health and care enquiries. We also listened to their experiences of using local services (in Hastings) which we will feed into our Listening Tour.

• We met with Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) staff to discuss feedback we received about GP services during the last quarter. This included positive feedback following the ‘Share for better care’ campaign run by Healthwatch England in February. We also shared concerns we’d received about wait times, a lack of trauma-informed staff at some practices, mixed messaging around face-to-face access, and a perceived reliance on digital tools at some practices.  

• Whilst exploring the provision of breast cancer screening services in East Sussex, we discovered that when using the NHS England website’s ‘Find a service’ function, there were no options listed for locations in East Sussex. We contacted NHS England to alert them to this, and they have now updated their website to reflect local provision options.

• We met with East Sussex County Council colleagues involved in the development of Neighborhood Mental Health Teams in East Sussex to better understand how services can support local people’s mental health needs and how Healthwatch East Sussex can share feedback with the teams to support their development and practice.   

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)