News and reports

At the moment, awareness of public health messaging is particularly important. A key part of our role at Healthwatch Central West London is raising awareness of Government and NHS public health messaging and working to ensure these messages are available to everybody.

The way we carry out our work has changed substantially over the past eight months. We are not in the office anymore and have not been since March.

As we adapt to living with COVID-19 long-term, technology has become increasingly central to how many of us communicate. With opportunities for face-to-face interaction limited, technology like video calling software has provided somewhat of an alternative. From doctors’ appointments to family catch-ups, how we communicate, receive information, and interact with others has changed considerably.

We are pleased to announce that we are an accredited Disability Confident Employer.

The COVID-19: Your Experience Matters survey was developed to capture the broadest range of experiences: in this report, we look at physical health and access to services; mental health and wellbeing; personal and family relationships; housing, environment and finances; and information.

We have surveyed people about how they have been affected by COVID-19. We wanted to highlight the experiences of those who responded to our survey who identified as being from a minority ethnic group.

We have been asking you to tell us how COVID-19 has affected you and your loved ones.
We all know by now that there is much more to the impact of this pandemic than catching COVID-19 (Coronavirus).

The most important part of our work is listening to local experiences of health and social care. It influences the information we publish, the resources we produce, and the recommendations that we share with local NHS providers. We want to reach more people who do not have digital access: this means email, social media, and even this website you’re looking at right now.

The Patients Association is currently carrying out a survey to find out how patients feel about visiting GP surgeries as lockdown eases.

During the Coronavirus outbreak, many PPGs suspended their activities allowing practice staff to focus on health emergency. However, most proactive PPGs continued working and were creative in their approach.

We want to speak to local users of NHS mental health services in Central North West London about how local care can address their protected characteristics.

With more and more appointments happening online, we've put together some tips on how to get the most out of the virtual health and care appointments both for patients and health and care professionals.