News and reports

It has been a contractual requirement for each GP practice since April 2016 to have an active and involved Patient Participation Group (PPG).

We set out to create a best practice award for PPGs aimed to increase and improve the involvement of patients in their GP practice. Several GP practices in Newcastle and Gateshead participated in our pilot from autumn 2019 to February 2021. This interim report outlines what we did.

Agendas, notes, and minutes for our committee meetings and annual general meeting.

A concern about the impact of the COVID-19 related lockdowns of 2020—21,was a recognition that restrictions had made life particularly difficult for families experiencing domestic abuse. Healthwatch Newcastle's Committee chose this as a priority piece of work to explore in greater detail.

Six GP practices in Outer West Newcastle - Denton Park Medical Group, Denton Turret Medical Group, Newburn Surgery, Parkway Medical Group, Throckley Primary Care Centre and Westerhope Medical Group - partnered with Healthwatch Newcastle to run a survey gathering patients’ views on additional services, accessing the practices and how COVID-19 affected their experience.

In early 2021 Healthwatch England designed a survey to help local services and national policymakers understand how they can improve the COVID-19 vaccination programme.

We used the survey to support local services to adapt and improve the delivery of the vaccination programme locally.

Our annual report for 2020–21 outlines our activities over the year to understand and improve people's experiences of social care and health services in Newcastle upon Tyne.

This report builds on our ‘Don’t box me in’ report. Young people and their parents/carers were asked how easy or difficult it was for young people to access health services in Newcastle and Gateshead.

Agendas, notes, and minutes for our committee meetings and annual general meeting.

This is the final COVID report on the responses we received up to the end of July 2020.

We ran a questionnaire during spring 2020 to find out how young people felt about the way health professionals treated them. We used ‘You’re Welcome’ criteria and feedback as guidance (quality criteria set out by the Department of Health and Social Care).

This is the COVID report on the responses we received up to the end of June 2020.

We launched a survey in May 2020 titled ‘COVID-19: your experiences of health and social care’. This is the report on the responses we received up to the end of May.