Healthwatch Together (covering Lancashire, Cumbria, Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen) are asking people who are waiting for routine and non-urgent hospital appointments to come forward and share their thoughts and experiences of waiting for care over the last year.
As part of this the Trust will be sending out invitations to our patients who are waiting for appointments and asking them to complete the survey before the 21 April.
People can access the link at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/MoodofthePublic.
Please keep an eye out for more information via social media using the hashtag #HaveYourSayLSC.
Background
During the first wave of Covid in spring 2020, hospitals across the country paused routine and non-urgent care, ensuring enough staff and beds were free to look after Covid patients as well as people who needed urgent or emergency care.
As the first wave receded in summer, we have been working tirelessly to catch up with waiting lists for routine and non-urgent care. As the second national lockdown took place in November, hospitals in Lancashire ad South Cumbria worked together to reduce any impact on routine and non-urgent appointments.
Despite these pressures the NHS never became a Covid-only service. Throughout the pandemic we have ensured many services continued as close to normal as possible and that we protected the most urgent services.
All Trusts continue to make local decisions, where necessary to manage their services on a daily basis, but we are all working closely together as a health and care system to ensure we optimise the care we are providing.
We are also working with local Healthwatch to help us to understand the views of local people who are waiting for a routine or non-urgent appointment to consider different ways of working together to improve services. Healthwatch are calling this project ‘The Mood of the Public’.
If you are contacted by Healthwatch, we encourage you to share your views so we can use these to shape our services going forwards.
Hospitals in Lancashire and South Cumbria include:
- Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust
- Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust