How we make a difference
How your feedback has helped improve services locally.
Why we make a difference
Healthwatch Surrey champions the voice of local people to shape, improve and get the best from NHS, health and social care services. We are independent and have statutory powers to make sure decision makers listen to the experiences of local people.
It’s really important that you share your experiences – both good or bad. We passionately believe that listening and responding to your experiences is vital to create health and social care services that meet the needs of people in Surrey.
Reaching out to our local community
We strive to make sure we hear from as wide a range of our diverse community as possible. We want to tell the people who make decisions and change things about the experiences everyone has with health and care services.
We amplify the collective voices of people at risk of health inequalities – speaking to people experiencing health inequalities and asking about their barriers to accessing services.
Getting to the heart of communities
As part of our primary care project seeking to understand the barriers that may prevent people from black or Asian minoritised communities from having sight (eye) tests, we’ve held 7 separate engagement events with groups across Surrey, working with community leaders to ensure the locations, timings and format of the events worked for the people we’re keen to hear from. During our engagement events we’ve helped 19 people to sign up for an eye test and a further 6 people find specialist help for their specific eye conditions.
Eliciting improvements to non emergency patient transport
In April 2025 - we worked with Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care Board to gather patient insights about non-emergency transport provision. For the remainder of the year people continued to talk to us about extended waiting times and issues with phone lines. Following our feedback the provider and commissioner have committed to monitoring all patient journeys more closely, investigating issues with phone lines and reviewing the complaints information given to patients.
