In North Yorkshire, we know that sometimes you have to access services further away from where you live. For example, you might live in Harrogate but access services in Leeds, live in Skipton but have to travel to Keighley or Bradford for your healthcare needs.
With over 600,000 people living in North Yorkshire and over 2.3 million people in West Yorkshire, it's important these services work for you. So we want to capture how you feel about them so that we can tell NHS providers and those in charge about it.
That's why we're working with Healthwatch (Bradford and District, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield District).
With new NHS decision-making locally, Healthwatch has ensured people’s voices and experiences are heard. The crucial role of Healthwatch has been recognised and West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership (who plan and deliver services) want us to build on this work.
Helping to make a difference
We played a key role in helping to refresh the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership's 5-year plan. This highlights the ambitions to make a difference in your health and well-being and how you receive care. Its goal is to outline how health and care services will work together to ensure people have long and healthy lives. Their plan was first published in March 2020. Following the pandemic, West Yorkshire wanted to make sure that their ambitions were still the right ones therefore we helped people have their say on what matters to them.
Sharing what you tell us with those who work join up health and social care services
NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board focus on key issues and we have been able to bring people's experiences of health and social care services into these discussions. We have shared insight, brought people with lived experience to the meetings and facilitated discussions with board members around these key topics.
Children and young people
The health and care experiences are being heard through the West Yorkshire Youth Collective.
Key messages from the children and young people's work included:
- Significant issues with accessing mental health support for children and young people, with waiting lists growing all the time especially after and as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic
- Significant issues around waiting for assessments for neurodiverse conditions including autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
- The complexity of trying to navigate services to get support, particularly for families and carers
- Climate change and its impact on young people's mental health
- Period poverty
- Violence against women and girls
"The meeting was very informative and productive. Everyone learned a lot. It was great to show the incredible work being done. They were inviting and invested in what can be done better when working with young people in the future."
Accessing GP services
The number one theme we hear across all our Healthwatch work is that people have different experiences of being able to access their GP services, with some having good access and some not.
You can see findings about GP access in the Healthwatch Insight report.
Key themes included:
- People struggle to book an appointment since new systems have been introduced
- People not knowing why the receptionist might ask personal questions
- Some people not feeling like they were able to see their GP face-to-face anymore
