Wandsworth Care Alliance

The Health Inequalities fund – everything you need to know!

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WCA are organising a new programme, working with the health service, 6 partner non-profit organisations, and a university evaluation team to help people in Wandsworth get legal support and welfare advice.

The fund has been designed by the ICB as part of a holistic (whole person) approach to health that sees how people are less likely to need mental and physical health services if they have a good standard of living, with an understanding of their rights and entitlements.

To approach this, the South West London Integrated Care Board (for the NHS), have found 6 themes that correlate to poor health outcomes. ​These themes are:

  • Black Asian Global Majority
  • Learning disabilities and autism​
  • LGBTQIA+​
  • Young and unpaid carers​
  • Socially isolated people​ (loneliness)
  • Asylum seekers and refugees.

They have given us a fund to help address the inequalities local people might be more likely to experience due to the underprivilege and discrimination these groups face. The fund will be used for improving the welfare and legal advice offer for better health outcomes.

Not for profit organisations work in the community, with these groups. As experts at reaching these communities, the ICB recognises that the funds need to be community led and distributed to 6 lead organisations on the frontline. This will help the ICB better understand the issues within these theme groups and help them to carry out preventative care more effectively after listening to the feedback from this project and others like it.

How does it work?

Wandsworth Care Alliance (WCA)manage, divide and distribute £320,000 to 6 leading organisationsto represent each theme. ​

We will then: ​

  • Work with the ICB​
  • Give development support and funds to project leads​
  • Set up a steering group for each project​
  • Coordinate external evaluation with Roehampton University

Together, with support from us (WCA) and having regular check-ins, project leads will design and deliver a programme responding to service users’ specific needs that runs between March 2024 – March 2025.
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How the project is going so far?

The six leads of the different themes have begun work on their projects in a variety of ways including research to understand the barriers faced in accessing welfare and legal advice, reaching out to their target groups to make them aware of the project, and carrying out workshops and 1-1 sessions. As the projects progress, we will provide more detailed updates on the impact of the work.

List of the organisations involved and links to websites here:

For more information on this project contact us at communications@wandcareall.org.uk

New research project: Autism and mental health for children and young people

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Healthwatch Wandsworth’s 2024-2025 research priority is children and young people’s experiences of autism and mental health.

Healthwatch Wandsworth speaks to the local community about their experiences with health and social care services. We then share this information with services to make changes.

Based on feedback from local people, Healthwatch Wandsworth, as the independent champion for users of health and social care, is focusing on autism diagnosis for 0-8 year olds in 2024-5.

Across Wandsworth and England there is an unprecedented number of people seeking an autism diagnosis and wait times to move through the autism diagnosis pathway are lengthy. Often this means people are not getting the support they need as they wait. These delays in diagnosis and support have severe impacts on mental health (Morris J (2024) “The rapidly growing waiting lists for autism and ADHD assessments” QualityWatch: Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation).

We will survey the families and carers of children and young people with autism spectrum condition to explore the following questions:

  • What does a ‘good’ 0-8 year old autism spectrum condition diagnostic pathway look like?
  • How can children and families get the support they need without a diagnosis?

If you’re a family member or carer of a child who is seeking or already has an autism diagnosis, we want to hear from you. Please complete this survey and/or share it with others in the community to make your and their voice heard.

Take the survey.

How your health priorities make a difference to services

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woman choosing between post-its - what are your health priorities?
woman choosing between post-its – what are your health priorities?

Healthwatch Wandsworth have a survey live now to find out what the most important health priorities and social care issues are to focus on for Wandsworth.

Take the survey

Healthwatch priorities won’t stop you from telling us about any issue, and we’ll keep sharing news. What priorities do is help us to focus our research and conversations on the issues that matter most, to effect change.

How our priorities shape action in services and the community

We make sure NHS leaders and decision makers hear your voice and use your feedback to improve care. We can also help you to find reliable and trustworthy information and advice.

To make sure people’s experiences help make health and care better we need to focus our energies on a few topics each year.

Tell us about the topics in health and social care that are most important to you and your community so that we can make sure we work on providing information and pushing for change on things that matter to people in Wandsworth.  

What difference we’ve made – an example

Local carers told us there were many ways care could be improved by involving carers when someone leaves hospital. We’ve advocated for change and there have been quite a few! Nationally the Department of Health and Social care told hospitals and social care services that they need to ensure carers are identified, that their needs are assessed and that they are signposted to help as part of the process when someone leaves hospital. Locally St George’s Hospital have committed to this and are making these improvements to how they work.

Why we need priorities 

We need to focus our energy on a few things each year so we can build enough research and insight to make a difference. We can move on to other things in other years. By announcing what our priorities are and what is important, local leaders of health and care services take notice of these things and it motivates them to improve things.

What we’re hearing most about

We’re already hearing that people think that the following are important topics to focus on:

  • Getting appointments with GPs and Dentists
  • Mental Health
  • Dementia
  • Homelessness and housing

Tell us what you think

Are these the most important topics for you and your community? Does there need to be more information or improvements in the way health and social care services support people’s health when facing these issues? Or are there other topics?

We want to hear how health and social care issues affect you and people you care for. What would make things better?

Change takes time, and by setting priorities we don’t expect these issues to be fixed. But there are things we can do to move change forward by making your stories heard. We want to hear what the most important conversations are to you.

Tell us what you think in under 2 minutes

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