News and reports

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

Healthwatch is a statutory service established by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to understand the needs, experiences and concerns of people who use local health and social care services.
We are funded by the Local Authority (Council).
We are the independent voice for people who use NHS and publicly funded health and care services in Hammersmith and Fulham. Our research and local engagement puts local people at the heart of care and decision making about health and social care, to ensure that services are fit-for-purpose now and in future.

Our work deliverables are designed to improve outcomes that can be utilised to drive influence and ultimately widen our impact. We act as an independent trusted body for local people to share their experiences and continue to raise the profile of patient voice through our findings and feed into the conversations that result in change. We publish public facing reports with clear, meaningful recommendations, which are vital to achieving impact for Healthwatch. Throughout the duration of the YVHSC contract, we have remained committed to making meaningful contributions by aligning our work with the borough's priorities, ensuring our efforts are purposefully designed to benefit the local community.

A report published by the Care Quality Commission in 2023 revealed that nearly half of the maternity services in the UK were rated as either 'needs improvement' or 'inadequate'. As community advocates, we sought to explore whether these negative ratings disproportionately impact women from minority ethnic groups in their maternity care experiences.​

The information presented within this report reflects the individual patient experience of health and social care services, untainted and without agenda to ensure that the genuine observations and commentaries of the community are captured. Healthwatch Hammersmith and Fulham presents this as factual information to be considered and utilised to improve service provision and highlight areas of good practice.

Part of the local Healthwatch programme is to undertake ‘Enter and View’ visits.
Mandated by the Health and Social Care Act 2012, the visits enable trained Healthwatch staff and volunteers (Authorised Representatives) to visit health and care services - such as hospitals, care homes, GP practices, dental surgeries, and pharmacies.

Part of the local Healthwatch programme is to undertake ‘Enter and View’ visits.

Mandated by the Health and Social Care Act 2012, the visits enable trained Healthwatch staff and volunteers (Authorised Representatives) to visit health and care services - such as hospitals, care homes, GP practices, dental surgeries, and pharmacies.

Part of the local Healthwatch programme is to undertake ‘Enter and View’ visits.
Mandated by the Health and Social Care Act 2012, the visits enable trained Healthwatch staff and volunteers (Authorised Representatives) to visit health and care services - such as hospitals, care homes, GP practices, dental surgeries, and pharmacies.
Enter and View visits can happen if people tell us there is a problem with a service, but equally, they can occur when services have a good reputation.
During the visits, we observe service delivery and talk with service users, their families, and carers. We also engage with management and staff. The aim is to get an impartial view of how the service is operated and being experienced.
Following the visits, our official ‘Enter and View Report’, shared with the service provider, local commissioners and regulators outlines what has worked well, and gives recommendations on what could have worked better. All reports are available to view on our website.

In response to the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, Healthwatch Hammersmith and Fulham (H&F) conducted engagement work to investigate and better understand the experiences of H&F residents. There was a particular focus on the impact on access to healthcare services and appointments, as well as on physical and mental health and wellbeing.

Social prescribing is a community-centred, holistic approach to health that offers a non-clinical intervention for people dealing with issues such as social isolation and loneliness, housing issues or financial pressures, that may impact their health and wellbeing. ​

The social prescribing service was selected as a topic for further investigation by Healthwatch, primarily as the service represents a great opportunity to improve health and wellbeing of residents, and considerably reduce pressure on and better support primary care. We wanted to better understand how the service was working from a patient perspective and use the patient voice to shape the service’s ongoing improvement journey.

The growing number of unpaid carers and the significance of their contributions to health and social care has been acknowledged by both national and local government. Due to this, Healthwatch H&F set out to understand the experience of carers through interviews that used qualitative and quantitative methods.

We are delighted to publish our Annual Report for 2023-24. Read about the work we carried out throughout the past year and the impact we made in the local community!