News and reports

To keep urgent NHS services safe and to make sure that they are available for everyone who needs them, an appointment system for urgent and emergency care is being introduced across the country from 1 December.

‘Lockdown’ has been named the 2020 Collins Dictionary word of the year. Others that made the top 10 list included furlough, key worker, self-isolate, social distancing and Coronavirus

Healthwatch Hertfordshire has been rallying to help people struggling to access urgent dental care services during the pandemic, ensuring they get the treatment they desperately need.

Find out the reasons for people not being online, and how being digitally excluded has affected people’s experiences during the pandemic.

We spoke to people who are digitally excluded to find out their reasons for not being online, and how this has affected their experiences during the coronavirus pandemic.

Meg is a Trustee on the Healthwatch Hertfordshire Board.

Feeling Good Week is a Hertfordshire-wide event that encourages schools and the wider community to promote children and young people’s emotional wellbeing.

Read more about our November 2020 Board meeting in public. Our Board members reviewed and signed off a new Decision Making Procedure and agreed the dates of their public Board meetings taking place in 2021.

With the help of our volunteers we checked 103 local GP websites, and found that while most offered advice for patients about cancer, the quantity and quality of that advice was not always very good.

This is the second strategy for Healthwatch Hertfordshire enabling us to look back to our beginnings in 2013 and plan for our future from 2020 onwards.

Are GP websites providing up to date information on COVID-19 and is there accessible and available advice for cancer patients, particularly at a time when it is likely that there would be an increase in patients accessing websites for information?

We are working with the University of Cambridge, Public Health England and other local Healthwatch across the East of England to find out what people think about using health data to inform care, public health and research.