Reaching out to our local community
We believe those who make decisions about health and social care can best improve services if they listen to people's experiences and feedback. We want everyone in Dorset to be included in the conversation, so we strive to hear from as wide a range of people as possible from our diverse community. We share your views with those providing health and care services to help create positive change.
We understand that factors such as culture, location, wealth, education, environment and discrimination can lead to worse health outcomes, and we support the strong consensus that this must change. At Healthwatch, we stand ready to help by doing more to amplify the voices of communities that go unheard and reduce the barriers they face.
Enhancing mental health services for young people
We engaged with young people from groups who do not always have a strong voice. Our research identified key aspects of young people’s mental services that require improvement, which informed the local NHS plan, Making Mental Health services better for young people in Dorset.
Improving patient access to urgent and emergency care
We guaged patient understanding of the different urgent and emergency healthcare settings that enabled NHS Dorset to create an action plan to meet all our recommendations as part of their redesign of urgent care services.
