Healthwatch Network Award 2016

Work of Healthwatch Waltham Forest was commended for the Healthwatch Network Award!

The national award celebrates the difference local Healthwatch have made to health and social care in the past year.

Our work on Phlebotomy (Bloodtesting) services has been commended from over 120 entries from other local Healthwatches for the Commissioning of services category. We have visited 7 phlebotomy centres with our Enter & View Representatives, looking at Accessibility/Environment Waiting times/Staff/Information/Results and follow up. Our findings highlighted a number of issues, which we summarised in a report and made 19 recommendations for service improvement. These recommendations were shared with the Health Centre Managers that host the services, Barts Health who hold the provider contract and Waltham Forest Clinical Commissioning Group (WFCCG) who are the commissioners for blood testing services.

They responded to the report and in our report you can see which actions they accept and will respond to, and which elements of the service they choose to remain as they are. You can read the report here 

The WFCCG were very pleased with the work and the recommendations we produced. They have included this in their service specification redesign with a view to commissioning a new service in 2017.

Carl Edmonds, Deputy Director of Strategic Commissioning has said “The HW report has had a huge impact on the new specifications including bookings, prioritisation of some patients, improved communications to patients improved engagement and feedback mechanisms and supports for more vulnerable patients. Thank Nafisa for your work on this.

The CCG is a better commissioner when it involves local people and so we will continue to work with Healthwatch to ensure that our residents are able to represent Waltham Forest’s diverse population effectively.”