Healthwatch Wandsworth & VIEW event: Have Your Say on Health and Social Care Services in Wandsworth

If you live in Wandsworth and have a visual impairment or are blind, Healthwatch Wandsworth would like to hear about your experiences of accessing and using healthcare and social care services.  Your feedback will help us to understand what support is needed for people living with a visual impairment or blindness. 

Join an online workshop on Thursday 17 March at 5:30 pm to share your views. 

You can also complete our survey using the following link: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/NUMG54/

Take part before the end of March 2022.

This event is organised in partnership with VIEW (Visually Impaired Experience in Wandsworth).   VIEW aims to provide mutual support to people living with a visual impairment in Wandsworth and work in partnership with key stakeholders to improve the lived experience of our members and the wider visually impaired population in the borough.    If you would like to hear more about VIEW’s future meetings and events, please email WandsworthViewGroup@gmail.com

WCA has asked International Arts Partnership to research the ‘state of the voluntary sector’ in Wandsworth.

The research is important – for you and WCA’s Voluntary Sector Coordination Service – but the methodology inevitably involves a survey.

International Arts knows how much people dislike answering surveys, so has made this one as easy as possible. You should just be able to go through it and answer the questions without asking anyone else or looking anything up.  They are keen to hear your thoughts so there is plenty of space to give those but it iss equally fine simply to tick boxes and pass on any you find difficult.

It would be very helpful to us if you could complete the survey. Doing it right now is a the best idea; it makes sure you won’t forget.

Thank you very much!  

A significant proportion of the adult population has still not been vaccinated and, as the country increasingly opens up, those people may be putting themselves at risk of serious illness or may be excluding themselves from activities which require evidence of vaccination.

Funding is still available to local groups able to run a short term project targeted at specific groups within the community, aimed particularly at those who may have had less access to the vaccination programme to support them to make an informed choice about whether to put themselves forward.

We are looking for proposals which clearly identify a target group and which either have a good understanding of the barriers faced by that group with suggestions about how to overcome those barriers or who are well placed to explore in more depth what those barriers are.  Examples are:

• groups working with minority ethnic communities who have had fewer opportunities to access the vaccine who could reach members of those communities with well-researched information on side effects; cultural and religious issues; or concerns about long term health implications.  Perhaps addressing this by holding online question and answer events or reaching people via radio or TV in specific languages
• Would the people you work with find information from a peer or community champion easier to access?
• Or perhaps the barriers are practical and groups could support individuals to travel to clinics or support individuals to understand what will happen at a clinic.

It is also becoming apparent that young people are less likely to take up the offer of a vaccine than their older family members.   Youth groups who could access young people under 30 perhaps through special events or by offering question and answer sessions at existing events or organizing discussions with health professionals about the science of vaccination or supporting pop up clinics in convenient places for this group are also invited to apply for grants.   

For an application pack and more information, please contact Melanie@wandcareall.org.uk. We are accepting expressions of interest on a rolling basis until September.