How Your Feedback Has Made a Difference

Blog - 23 June 2025

Thanks to your feedback, we’ve helped bring about meaningful improvements to local health and care services. Here are some of the ways your voice has made a difference:

Audience listening to a presentation at Healthwatch Summit in October 2023

Better Experiences in Eye Clinics

Last summer, we carried out Enter and View visits to local ophthalmology departments to understand patient experiences.

Thanks to your feedback:

Addenbrooke’s Hospital improved its signage to help people find their way more easily.
Cambridge University Hospitals increased the number of Eye Care Liaison Officers supporting patients.
Our findings also supported the work of our local RNIB partners.

Read our Eye Clinics Enter and View report

Supporting People Living with Dementia

Through our Older People’s Partnership Boards, we heard that people receiving care at home while living with dementia weren’t always getting the food and drink they needed.

We worked with the Alzheimer’s Society to present these concerns to Cambridgeshire County Council’s three adult social care provider forums. We made recommendations for:

Improved training
Dementia-friendly food and drink policies

As a result, the Council now includes nutrition checks in its monitoring of home care providers.

See the Older People’s Partnership Board website

Making Wheelchair Services More Inclusive

Our Wheelchair User Forum campaigned for greater involvement in how NHS wheelchair services are commissioned.

Thanks to your voices:

Wheelchair users took part in engagement sessions to shape the questions asked of potential new service providers.
We are now working with the ICB to ensure users are actively involved in the full tender process.

This could lead to real change — with wheelchair users playing a key role in how services are designed and delivered.

Reaching Underrepresented Voices to Shape Strategy

In October 2024, we held a Health Inequalities Summit to gather real-life experiences from people across our community.

Your stories are helping to improve services across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough:

The NHS is using the findings to shape its local health strategy.
North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust (NWAFT) is building a patient engagement roadmap for the new Hinchingbrooke Hospital.
The ICB is using the report to help develop a new care model for patients.

“The information was so helpful and was shared by our CEO. NHS England New Hospital Programme requires us to submit a Target Operating Model (TOM) for the new hospital and as such we are required to consider population health demographic, patient perspectives and insights gathered by both ourselves and partner organisations and to look at health inequalities. As we develop the TOM, we will use this information to show how the new hospital addresses these issues and takes account of wider views and perspective.”
— Sarah Ferguson, Target Operating Model Director, NWAFT

Taking Action on Youth Vaping

Our young volunteers in Youthwatch raised concerns about vaping among young people.

Here’s what we did together:

Spoke to over 700 young people and ran a focus group for 13–17-year-olds
Published a report with key recommendations for schools, NHS teams and local authorities
Shared findings with schools, colleges, and public health teams
Created an online toolkit and began developing an animated video with students from University Centre Peterborough

Thanks to your feedback:

We spoke to NHS teams about how they talk to young people about vaping
In April 2025, the Healthy You, Healthy Schools programme piloted new support services for 12–18-year-olds
Sheffield Hallam University used our data to inform local research for Cambridgeshire County Council
We shared our learning with 23 other Healthwatch teams across the country

“The Youthwatch survey highlighted some important findings which helped guide our qualitative insights work. We specifically sought to understand in more detail the factors influencing young people's vaping behaviour and attitudes towards quitting, particularly amongst young people who vape regularly.” — Centre for Behavioural Science and Applied Psychology, Sheffield Hallam University

Read the Youthwatch Vaping and Young People report

Building Relationships with Local Communities

Members of the local Bengali community were invited to an education day at Thorpe Hall Hospice.

In our Enter and View report, we recommended that the hospice improve awareness of its services and demonstrate how it supports all faiths and communities.

New print and digital resources have been developed
Staff are receiving cultural awareness training
Community leaders are invited into the hospice to foster mutual understanding

“Our wellbeing team are working on a programme to invite community leaders into Thorpe Hall on a monthly basis for them to look round and to give our staff the opportunity to be curious about different cultures, beliefs and practices - particularly at the end of life. The first session is next week with the Bengali community. We hope that once we have made links with community leaders, they can help to spread the word about the hospice’s services.”
— Sue Ryder, Thorpe Hall

View our Enter and View report on Sue Ryder Thorpe Hall Hospice