News and reports

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.

NHS and social care services cannot make improvements without hearing your views. That is why we have made listening to feedback from all areas of the community a priority. This allows Healthwatch Kingston to understand the full picture and feed this back to services to help them improve…even if it sometimes takes a while for what you have said, to have an impact.

Healthwatch Kingston undertook an announced Enter and View to Amy Woodgate Care Home in May 2024. Our focus for this Enter and View was to observe the living environment; residents’ mealtime experiences; and activities provided.

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

This meeting will be held on MS Teams

This report is one of two (the second is our ‘Including Digitally Excluded Communities’ report) that share findings from our community engagement with Kingston residents over almost two years.

This report is one of two (the other is our ‘Including Communities’ report) that share findings from our community engagement with Kingston residents over twenty months. During this period, to support Kingston, as a Marmot borough, Healthwatch Kingston has tripled our community engagement activity with people with protected characteristics and people who are not often heard from.