Making every voice count: Healthwatch Surrey Annual report 2025-26
Our 2025/26 annual report ‘Making every voice count’ highlights our impact throughout the year supported by our volunteers. Thank you to the people of Surrey for trusting us with your experiences.
Through 2025 – 2026, 2428 Surrey residents shared their experiences about health and social care with us and 421 people came to our Helpdesk for advice and information on topics such as how to make a complaint about an NHS or social care service or how to access a local GP practice - as well as looking for support when they had serious concerns about care they had received.
Read our report to find out more about how, following what we heard from local residents, our work contributed to:
- Addressing loneliness, mental health and men's access to support
- Improving non-emergency patient transport provision
- Helping domestic abuse survivors get support from GP practices
- Raising concerns to MPs about hearing loop provision in pharmacies
- Ensuring sexual health information is available for young people
- Improving access for cervical screening and sight tests
- Reviewing of the Annual Health check template for those with learning disabilities to ensure it better identifies emotional support needs.
- The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) 5 year plan strategy workshop.
Through our Helpdesk we have helped people by:
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Directing people to appropriate complaints routes and advocacy services
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Providing up-to-date information people can trust
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Helping people access the services they need
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Supporting people to look after their health
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Signposting people to additional support services.
Our volunteers have helped us in numerous ways, including:
- Dedicating over 40 hours to scrutinising Quality Accounts of 8 providers
- Exploring student understanding of mental health services
- 8 volunteers supporting the Healthwatch team to undertake Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) at 5 settings
- Being a part of our Local Healthwatch Advisory Group.
"You are the only people who have sat down with me, talked through everything, looked at the whole picture and given us practical advice."
Downloads
File download
Annual Report 2025-2026 (pdf)
