On Wednesday 30 March, representatives from NELFT attended the Healthwatch Awards Ceremony.

This event – in its first year – celebrated the best in health & social care in Kent & Medway. 200 guests came together to recognise the achievements, and shared ideas that can be employed in work across the region.

In a fantastic result, NELFT Children and Young Peoples Mental Health Services (CYPMHS) Kent and Medway received a Recognition Award for “Acting on recommendations made by Healthwatch”.

Talking about the award, Healthwatch Kent’s Robbie Goatham said,

“We work with health and social care organisations in Kent to ensure that they are hearing important service user feedback and using the experience to improve their services. This bird’s eye view means that we see what’s working well, and what needs improving.”

“In NELFT CYPMHS Kent’s case, we heard that parents were struggling to change their children's prescriptions. When they called the Children and Young Peoples Mental Health Services (CYPMHS), they could only leave a message and the automated system didn't allow them to speak to a real person. They told us they weren't having any success with the message system to get what they needed. We shared the feedback with NELFT and as a result, they changed their phone system and the recorded message so that parents could now get through and successfully change their children’s prescriptions.”

Gill Burns, NELFT Children’s Services Director, Essex and Kent, spoke about the result and the importance of incorporating feedback,

“We’re very pleased to have received this award which recognises the efforts made by the Kent CYPMHS to ensure that feedback about our service is captured and responded to meaningfully. As a service, it’s our responsibility to ensure we provide the best possible level of care for our Children and Young People. The award is truly a credit to our teams’ clear focus on continually striving for the best standards.”

You can find out more about the awards on the Healthwatch website.