What is a Community Champion?

Healthwatch relies on local people sharing information with us.

As we are the independent champion for people who use health and social care services, we’re here to make sure that those running services, put people at the heart of care. This makes sure that services continue to develop to reflect the changing needs of the people who use them.

Our sole purpose is to understand the needs, experiences and concerns of people who use health and social care services – especially those who are vulnerable and/or from seldom heard groups and to speak out on their behalf.

Community Champions are our vital link to these communities.  Although the role was developed during lockdown because we needed to make adaptations to the way we connected with people, as we move into the future, we want to support Community Champions to be integral to our work so that health and care services meet the needs of everyone.  

Through their roles they are able to understand the needs of the people they support and are able to share anonymised experiences relating to health and social care, identify gaps in service or highlight factors in our area that are contributing to poor health and wellbeing.

YouTube video: How Community Champions influence our work! 

What do we do with the information you share with us?

• We share this information with the relevant services, our contacts and any forums we are involved in, e.g. the South Tees Live Well Health and Wellbeing Board and the Patient Experience Subgroup at JCUH. This will allow for strategic decisions to be influenced by local people.
• Any patterns and trends that we identify from the intelligence will steer our workplan priorities, decisions and Enter and View activities (a formal activity where we attend a service to get feedback from patients/public and staff to see how well it is working).
• Share specific intelligence with decision makers to improve services or influence future commissioning priorities.