At Healthwatch Westmorland and Furness, our role is to make sure local people’s voices are heard and used to improve health and social care services. Over the coming year, we’ll be focusing on a range of important projects and activities designed to understand people’s experiences, highlight what matters most and help shape better services for the future.
Here's what we aim to focus on:
Families caring for a newborn in a hospital neonatal setting often face emotionally intense and challenging experiences. Their journeys can feel fragmented and time-limited, and they need services that are safe, compassionate, and effective.
Working alongside the Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP), we’ll be speaking to families across Lancashire and Cumbria to understand their experiences, identify gaps in support, and explore opportunities for improvement. What we hear will help inform the future development of maternity and neonatal services.
The NHS 10-Year Plan places greater emphasis on moving care from hospitals into communities, with a stronger focus on prevention rather than treatment.
Through our Neighbourhoods project, we’ll be visiting communities across Westmorland and Furness to ask local people:
This work will help ensure local services are designed around the realities of people’s everyday lives.
Another key shift in the NHS 10-Year Plan is moving from analogue to digital services. While digital healthcare can bring many benefits, it can also create barriers—particularly for older people, those living with frailty, and residents in rural areas where internet connectivity can be unreliable.
We’ll be exploring how digital changes are affecting our communities, where challenges exist, and what practical solutions are needed to ensure everyone can access high-quality, consistent care.
Following on from successful Ageing Well projects carried out by Healthwatch Cumberland and Healthwatch Lancashire, we want to understand what people need to remain healthy, connected, and happy as they get older.
This year, we’ll focus especially on:
By listening to older residents and those who support them, we can help influence services that promote independence and wellbeing later in life.
We’ll continue carrying out Enter and View visits to health and care settings, helping us see services first-hand and speak directly with patients, families, and staff.
Alongside this, we’ll maintain a visible presence in health centres and hospitals through ward visits and conversations in waiting areas, making it easier for people to share feedback with us.
We know that collaboration creates stronger communities. That’s why we’ll continue partnering with local organisations and services through pop-ups, drop-ins, outreach sessions, and community events.
By working together, we can reach more people and make sure a wide range of voices are represented.
In partnership with local and national Healthwatch organisations, we’ll continue campaigning on the issues that matter most to local people, including access to GP services, NHS dentistry, and other barriers to care.
Your experiences help shape this work and every story shared can make a difference.
If you have experiences of health or social care services you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you. Your voice can help improve services for everyone in Westmorland and Furness.