Every year Healthwatch Dudley enjoys taking part in Dudley Play Week as it helps us to understand what local families think about their health and wellbeing. This year because of the coronavirus pandemic, #DudleyPlayWeek has moved online and children are being invited to take part in fun activities on the Sycamore Adventure Facebook page!
Dudley Play Week takes place: Monday 3rd to Friday 7th August 2020
We have teamed up with Dudley Young Health Champions to make this short film featuring local youngsters who want to encourage children from all across Dudley borough to get involved.
Enter our competition…
…and your designs and letters could find themselves being turned into postcards to brighten the days of people living in care in Dudley borough.
We care about adult social care services. To help make support better for everyone, we want to hear your views.
As the country responds to COVID-19, you can help your local adult social care services to provide the best support possible in your community, by sharing your experiences of care during the pandemic.
For our August People’s Network we have teamed up with Dudley Council for a friendly online conversation to ask:
Have you been shielding during the pandemic? What has worked well for you with your care and support needs?
Have you been looking after someone who receives support at home from paid carers? Have you noticed a difference?
Do you have a friend or a relative who lives in a local care home? How have you been keeping in touch?
Do you have a disability or care for someone who has? Have you been able to get the support you need during the COVID-19 emergency?
Do you use an alarm or other telecare services provided by Dudley Council? What was your experience during lockdown?
Have you, or a family member been discharged from hospital during the pandemic and needed extra care or support? Has this worked?
Have you had to go out to work when someone else in your household has been shielding? How has this felt?
If you have had a good experience we want to hear about it so other services can learn from what has worked well. If something wasn’t right, we want to hear your ideas for how things can improve.
Put the kettle on and join us, your views can make a difference!
COVID-19 is a new illness that can affect your lungs and airways. It is caused by a type of coronavirus. By working together we can help to stop the spread of this disease.
Find out about symptoms, who is at risk and how to protect yourself with the latest NHS information and keep up to date with the latest government guidance.
The Government is investing an extra £20 billion a year in the NHS. Help your local NHS invest in the right support by sharing your ideas and experiences. #WhatWouldYouDo
With growing pressure on the NHS – an ageing population, more people living with long-term conditions, lifestyle choices affecting people’s health – changes are needed to make sure everybody gets the support they need.
The Government is investing an extra £20bn a year in the NHS. The NHS has produced a Long Term Plan, setting out all the things it wants health services to do better for people across the country. This includes: making it easier for people to access support closer to home and via technology, doing more to help people stay well, and providing better support for people with long-term health conditions.
But whilst the national plan has set some clear goals, it’s up to local areas to decide how they’re achieved. Now it’s time for people to have their say and help shape what the delivery of the plan should look like in their communities.
Independent health charity The Kings Fund has produced a helpful guide to understanding the Long Term Plan which can be downloaded here.
We have been listening to your views though our online surveys, focus groups and local events where we asked:
What would you do to give people more control of their care?
– What your local NHS could do to help your community stay well and to make local services better.
What would you do to give people better support?
– You to share your experiences of support for cancer, mental health conditions, heart and lung diseases, long-term conditions such as diabetes and arthritis, learning disabilities, autism, and dementia, and what could make care better.
Healthwatch Dudley is working with Dudley CCG and Dudley Public Health to find out what local people think and feel about the important topic of self care. At the beginning of our journey we asked for your help with creating a pack that could kick start lots more conversations – and here it is!
Now it’s over to you again. We would like you to use the pack to chat with people who you know about mental wellbeing, minor ailments, caring, long term conditions or the roles that professionals play in our health and wellbeing.
You can choose one, more or all of these themes, all we ask is that you feed back to us what you talked about so that your thoughts and ideas can help to shape a new self care strategy for Dudley borough.
Download your pack here or get in touch and we can get a printed copy sent out to you.
Then put the kettle on and let’s get talking about self care!
