Healthwatch Gloucestershire 22 Message from our Manager This year Healthwatch Gloucestershire has spoken to more people and attended more groups than in 2017-18, which has seen over 3,000 views on health and social care shared with us. We have visited over 200 groups, events and services to raise awareness of Healthwatch Gloucestershire’s work, to listen to people’s stories, to gather information and to promote and support involvement of local members of the public in the commissioning and provision of services. We could not have done this without our highly valued team of volunteers who have given up over 1,250 hours of their time to ensure that the public voice is heard. With their support we have been represented at 23 strategic meetings, ensuring that your voice is having an impact at the highest level. The countywide Campervan and Comments Tour gave us the opportunity to reach out to a range of people who had not heard or engaged with us before, and to visit areas of the county that we had not previously done. We had a good opportunity to talk to people about what was important to them about the future of health and social care through the engagement work around the NHS Long Term Plan. Many conversations we have had through the year with people have focussed on mental health services, especially around children and young people moving into adult services, and on the interaction of mental health services and drug and alcohol services. Towards the end of the year, we completed a project asking people for their experiences of mental health services, the outcomes of this will also shape a project for 2019-20. Our priorities for the year ahead will be: 1. Mental Health 2. Children and Young People 3. Social Care and social isolation We are currently arranging to meet key stakeholders involved with these services to better understand the challenges and to identify how we can share the public voice on these areas to help shape future services in Gloucestershire. I would like to say a big thank you to all those who have shared their stories with us, invited us to their groups and clubs or helped us to engage with local communities in the last year. Julia Butler-Hunt Healthwatch Gloucestershire Manager
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