Making a Difference: A year of Enter and View Visits to Princess Royal Hospital (Haywards Heath)

Healthwatch has a legal power to visit health and social care services and see them in action. This power to Enter and View services offers a way for Healthwatch to meet some of its statutory functions and allows us to identify what is working well with services and where they could be improved.

Throughout 2018-2019 a dedicated volunteer-led team carried out monthly hospital visits.

During our visit, we focused on:

• Observing how people experienced the service through watching and listening
• Speaking to people using the service and their family and friend carers, to find out more about their experiences and views
• Observing the nature and quality of services and speaking to staff.

Overall

What has been great to witness over the last year, is the turnaround in staff morale. We are now seeing staff that are much happier and confident in their workplace, as they are smiling now when carrying out duties. This may now be represented in the Trust’s improved Care Quality Commission rating or as a result of this.

There is much that is now positive about the hospital and we can see the impact Terece Walters is having.

There is still a need to address some basics and we have detailed when we will know if this has been achieved within this report.