News and reports

Healthwatch Kingston (HWK) champions better standards of care in socially funded health and social care services. This report presents the findings of the HWK Authorised Representatives’ visit to Cloyda Care Home (Cloyda). Cloyda Ltd is situated in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (RBK). This family run home (since 1986) has recently been passed onto a younger generation.

This visit was undertaken by Authorised Representatives at Healthwatch Kingston upon Thames (HWK). This visit was undertaken as one of 18 visits to be undertaken across 15 care homes in Kingston as agreed with Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (RBK) and Kingston Care Governance Board (KCGB).

Healthwatch Kingston (HWK) champions better standards of care in socially funded health and social care services. This report presents the findings of the Authorised Representatives’ visit to Langley Court Rest Home (LCRH). LCRH is situated in the Royal Borough of Kingston (RBK) and is run by LCRH Ltd, a provider that was established in 1986 and is a single provider.

Kingston Hospital have recently developed the Learning Disability and Autism Strategy 2024 - 2026,

The public is welcome to join PART A of this meeting.

People who asked for our help learned what was possible within health and care.

We escalated people’s concerns about limited access to ADHD and other important medications to NHS England through Healthwatch England.

People we engaged with during our ‘Including Communities’ work told us they felt at a disadvantage when trying to access NHS and social care services because they did not have a computer or were not computer literate.

Over a 20-month period, ending in October 2023, Healthwatch Kingston attended 28 health and wellbeing events and local community groups to engage with 334 people from seldom heard from communities and the most vulnerable in our society. Participants included refugees, asylum seekers and people from other migrant communities, people experiencing homelessness and areas of high deprivation.

In 2023, to ensure the views of people we engaged with helped inform change, we shared findings from our ‘London Ambulance Service Strategy 2023–2028: Healthwatch Kingston Community Engagement Report and Recommendations’ with the London Assembly Health Committee. Our research findings were included in the Committee’s formal letter to the London Ambulance Service (LAS) following their call for written evidence from patient groups and members of the public.

In 2018, Healthwatch Kingston established our Adult Safeguarding Community Reference Group to listen to and translate personal stories into evidence to help improve services. Over the past six years, we have expanded our reach to work collaboratively with people with lived experience of safeguarding from Kingston and across London; putting voices at the heart of safeguarding scrutiny and governance.

In 2021, collaborating with Kingston Voluntary Action, we engaged 348 people and 59 NHS and other health and social care professionals, to explore the lived experience of people accessing bereavement services and support in Kingston, particularly the intersection with culture, faith, and life philosophies.