News and reports

This report shares the findings from our recent engagement with care home residents, staff, and families, focused on understanding what makes a care home a good place to live. Through a series of visits, we gathered valuable insights into the everyday experiences of residents and identified examples of good practice that promote not just quality care, but also quality of life.

We are pleased to present Healthwatch Middlesbrough's Annual Report for 2024/25.

Launched last year by North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB), the Big Conversation heard from almost 5,000 women as part of a programme aiming to make the region a driving force for better women's health.

The new report - published by the region's independent Healthwatch network - used a regionwide survey and a series of focus groups to better understand what matters to women about their health.

#BIGconvo

This report summarises the findings of a community engagement project led by the Healthwatch Tees Valley Network, which gathered feedback from patients, carers, and the wider community to help the hospitals focus on areas for improvement.

This report represents the voices of patients, carers, and communities across Tees Valley, North Yorkshire, and County Durham. Through focus groups and online engagement, people have shared their experiences, challenges, and aspirations for healthcare services under the University Hospitals Tees partnership.

This report is not just a reflection of current services, but a tool for ongoing dialogue and collaboration. Healthwatch remains committed to ensuring that community voices continue to influence the development of healthcare services.

In 2024 / 2025, we prioritised visiting GP Practices across Middlesbrough and Redcar and Cleveland to:-

• Develop relationships with GP Practices.
• Share our resources and raise awareness of HWST.
• Inform patients about additional roles within GP practices.

As well as increasing awareness of Healthwatch South Tees, workshops were held to identify what health and care services these communities use, the barriers they face in accessing these services and most importantly discussing solutions to remove them.

Our report below includes a summary of the key findings and recommendations to improve access to services.

We are pleased to present Healthwatch Middlesbrough's Annual Report for 2023/24.

In September 2023, Healthwatch South Tees (HWST) welcomed two new Engagement & Events Officers to the team as a way to increase awareness of our function with South Tees communities and encourage additional feedback of health and care services to inform our work.

This report has been completed following a review of 38 GP Practice websites across the South Tees region.

The particular focus of this project is to improve support for the family, carers and
older people with a learning disability (aged 40+ to reflect the early onset of chronic
health conditions such as dementia) by producing effective recommendations.

We worked with in collaboration with Tees Valley Healthwatch Network and both the South Tees and wider Tees Valley reports are available to download.

In August 2023 we produced our GP Resource in collaboration with a range of professionals in response to the most common questions we heard from local people. We also wanted to raise awareness of the changes that are now in place in GP practice teams, to help people understand how to make the most of the range of options available from this service.

This report highlights all of the work we have carried out so far.

It includes feedback from our menopause event, responses from consultation surveys and identifies improvements to support services that are required locally which would improve experiences.