Our Impact: Translating health data into what matters for local people
Annual Quality Accounts assess the care provided by NHS-funded providers and cover safety, effectiveness and patient experiences. As part of this process, Healthwatch is invited to review these accounts and offer feedback.
Our response is an important step in translating technical performance data into community-focused insights that matter to local people.
Our review identified four critical themes:
1. Patient Access and Equity - Health inequalities work is progressing but needs to maintain strong community engagement.
2. Communication and Experience - Complaints about attitude and empathy persist across multiple NHS Trusts.
3. System Integration - Strong collaborative projects are emerging but coordination could be improved.
4. Workforce and Culture - Culture change initiatives are underway and we need to see how these make a difference.
What did we do?
We provided formal responses to 10 NHS providers:
- East and North Hertfordshire Hospital NHS Trust (ENHT)
- West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (WHTHT)
- The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust (PAHT)
- Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust (HCT)
- Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust (CLCH)
- Royal Free London Foundation NHS Trust (RFL)
- Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (HPFT)
- East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST)
- Garden House Hospice Care (GHHC)
- Isabel Hospice (IH)
In reviewing their Quality Accounts, we looked at whether there was evidence the organisation was doing basic things well and if there was a learning culture that allowed people’s experiences to be captured and used to make improvements. We also sought clarification on how improvements were monitored and measured.
Ongoing persistent challenges include waiting times (particularly paediatrics, mental health and ambulance responses), ageing estates and hospital redevelopment delays.
However progress has been made in areas such as dementia care, carer support, digital transformation, the use of AI and patient safety initiatives like Martha’s Rule.
How does this make an impact?
By taking an over-arching view and looking at all Quality Accounts in our area, we can identify cross-cutting themes and patterns that span across NHS boundaries. We are also able to highlight successful practices that could be replicated across providers, particularly around joint-working.
We are in a unique position to:
- Identify system-wide patterns that can sometimes be invisible to individual providers
- Create collaboration opportunities that benefit both providers and communities
- Ensure community voices influence strategic decision-making
In our responses, we referenced six pieces of our own research to highlight local priorities including work on health inequalities, international recruits and digital exclusion.
This review also provides us with a quality monitoring document to hold services to account moving forward.
“In the work undertaken, it is clear how much unique value Healthwatch can add and how much insight we can extract from working within and across the system. While individual improvements matter, the most impactful changes occur through collaborative working across traditional boundaries. This is important to address health inequalities. We continue to champion that technological advances remain inclusive rather than creating new barriers to care.
We've invited providers to collaborate with us to support their priorities and community needs, where we can provide our support as a strategic partner rather than just a commentator.”
- Ivana Chalmers, CEO Healthwatch Hertfordshire
