News and reports

Healthwatch Newcastle (HWN) engaged with autistic people and people with a learning disability to understand their experiences accessing and using GP services in Newcastle. GP Practice Managers across Newcastle were invited to share information around their processes for requesting and implementing reasonable adjustments and their capacity to make requested adjustments. Read our full report here :-

Healthwatch Gateshead and Healthwatch Newcastle recently engaged with local residents to understand experiences and opinions of the North East Ambulance Service. We wanted to understand public perceptions of the service, what trust means to the public, and overall levels of trust felt towards NEAS.
Overall, feedback was positive, however, most of those we consulted felt that they could not fully trust NEAS. Specific elements of trust were identified and included:
- Reliability, Availability, and Responsiveness
- Delivering a High Standard of Care
- Integrity and the Alignment of Words & Actions
- Patients’ Safety

Our full report is available to read here

Our Whistleblowing policy is intended to assist staff and volunteers who believe they have discovered malpractice or wrongdoing within Tell Us North, by enabling them to raise their concerns in a responsible and effective manner.

Our Safeguarding policies outline what our processes and steps are to ensure the safeguarding of children and adults we engage with.

Our complaints process outlines how to make a complaint about us and our approach to making sure complaints are resolved.

In March 2022 HWG and HWN launched a survey to gather young people’s views and general experiences of loneliness and social isolation.

This is a copy of our Record Keeping and Retention Policy

We compared the findings from two surveys of carers — one in Newcastle and one in North Tyneside. Our report looks at the similarities and differences in carers' needs in the two local authority areas during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We wanted to gain a greater understanding of people’s experiences of caring during the COVID-19 pandemic and in accessing information and support. We included a short evaluation for people who had used Newcastle Carers’ services.

The NHS Long Term Plan introduced targets to ensure GP practices offer an annual health check for people with learning disabilities.

People with learning disabilities can have poorer physical and mental health than others and die younger. Annual health checks can provide a way to detect, treat and prevent new and unmet health conditions. Care for ongoing conditions can also be reviews during the annual check.

Healthwatch teams across the North East region saw a significant increase in concerns about accessing NHS dental care during 2021. Eight local Healthwatch worked together to gather people’s experiences in the region. We published a report outlining our collective survey findings from March 2020 to January 2022.

Our annual report for 2021–22 outlines Healthwatch activities over the year to understand and improve people's experiences of social care and health services in Newcastle upon Tyne.