What we do
Healthwatch Enfield are the eyes and ears of the community and are here to ensure that the local people get the best quality of care from their Primary and Secondary Health services in Enfield.
We do this by running conferences, attending local activities, events and projects. By doing this, we are able to gather information and feedback from the local people who use the services. The information retrieved is then passed onto the relevant organisations for feedback.
How we work
We are here to listen to what you like about services and what you think could be improved. No matter how big or small the issue, we want to hear about it.
We want to understand your needs, experiences of and concerns on local health and social care services, and to speak out on your behalf.
Where possible, we will let you know when local services are changing, or when new services are planned, and help you to have a say.
We encourage those in charge of local health and care to involve you in their future plans.
Our approach
We champion what matters to you and work with others to find ideas that work
We are independent and committed to making a difference to the people in Enfield by:
Being Specific : Knowing who to signpost people to when assistance is needed.
Listening: Ensuring that Enfield residents views are heard.
Co-producing: By working with our community partners to find common solutions to issues that are raised.
Accessibility: Ensuring that the local people have access to the right services.
We aim to build an efficient, reliable service whereby the peoples views are always heard and never forgotten.
Looking for a specific health care service in Enfield?
We provide information
We provide a ‘one-stop-shop’ public information point for health and social care services in Enfield.
Please see our events page to see where we will be located in the area.
If you need help finding the right service, need to make a complaint, or a compliment, but not sure how, then we can help.
Find us on social media: Twitter and Facebook
Call us on 0208 373 6283
Text us on 07526 645 683
“Thank you Healthwatch Enfield! Great to know we can rely on you giving us genuine, verified information at a time when there is so much fake news out there - Keep up the good work!”
You can also keep up to date on all Enfield Health and Social Care news by signing up to our newsletter.
We influence long term change and improvement
We have a seat on numerous health and social care boards and committees in Enfield, as well as representing Healthwatch and local residents at a North Central London level, which includes the boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Haringey, and Islington, as an equal, but independent partner. Within Enfield this includes the Health and Wellbeing Board, as well as many other key boards and committees. It is our job at these meetings to speak up to help raise awareness of the views and experiences of patients we hear from.
We often put forward suggestions which help to influence decisions being discussed at the time and we challenge where appropriate. We also encourage ‘co-design’ wherever possible, which means getting patients involved right at the start of projects to help design and plan new services or changes to services.
We help to improve services in Enfield
Our statutory powers mean that we can ‘enter and view’ publicly funded health and care services to observe how they are being run. It also means that if we write a report and make recommendations for improvement, the service must respond to us by law. This must be done in a meaningful way and explain what actions they intend to take to make things better or, if no action can be taken, they must explain why not. We also take part in retrieving feedback from the general public regarding any NHS proposals that we know may affect the people in our communities, We do this by actively engaging with the local people to hear the feedback.
Last year we published six Enter and View reports and made 42 recommendations for improvement. 39 of these (93%) have been implemented or accepted to be implemented in the near future.
We involve you
Through our work in the community and from our information telephone line, we get to hear first-hand from patients and the public what their experience of health and social care in Enfield is really like.
We write reports about different services using your feedback as evidence. This helps to influence the people who run those services to make positive changes or improvements based on your needs.
Because we have a good relationship with most of the health and care services in Enfield, we are often invited to support them to plan improvements. We do this by getting patients and residents involved in helping to design new services, particularly if they have a special interest or experience of using that service. We call this co-design.
How we are funded
Every Healthwatch in England is funded by its local authority. We have an allocated budget each year and we bring in extra funds through taking on commissioned work. One example is when we delivered Cancer Awareness training across the borough.
It was a fantastic presentation and it definitely made the residents of the Enfield ladies (Turkish) community more knowledgeable about the ‘awareness of cancer’ and the signs to look out for, as the residents struggle to speak English
Our volunteers
We are a small team so we rely on our amazing volunteers to help us deliver all our projects over the year. Our great volunteers come from across the borough and from many different backgrounds and communities. This means we can get out and about more, as well as listen to what’s important to you.
I was made extremely welcome by Michelle and helped at many events in the community. It was really rewarding and lots of fun also. It rebuilt my confidence. The feedback I received was so positive when some said they felt like I was an old friend. I feel the same about them also. That is why even though I have a job now, I will still volunteer with Healthwatch