Having a page showing your impact can help everyone understand how your Healthwatch improves the lives of people living in your community. By adding new stories about what you have achieved, you can show the difference you have made. 

Here are three examples of Healthwatch who have built their impact page using our guidance: 

• Healthwatch Bristol
• Healthwatch Lambeth
• Healthwatch Sunderland

When creating your impact page from this guidance, it is essential that you:

• Keep each story short and to the point so readers can understand the difference you made. 
• Only add new stories when positive changes have been achieved. 
• Go back and update the stories if new outcomes happen so the content stays up to date. 

About this resource

The importance of local Healthwatch working together is crucial as ICSs develop. Even if you have good informal working relationships, you should start to formalise agreements with other local Healthwatch and ICSs to agree on how you will work together.

The ICS presents local Healthwatch with opportunities and challenges that will require you at times to represent each other, carry out engagement together, collate insight, and influence together. A formal agreement will prevent misunderstanding and ensure everyone has clarity on roles.

If you have a question

If you need help or have concerns please contact your Regional Manager.

The demographic guidance covers:

• Why it’s important to collect and use demographic data
• GDPR and demographics
• The importance of using a standard set of demographics
• When to think about demographics in projects
• Integrating demographic data into your analysis and reporting

About this resource

We have created a learning and development calendar for the year ahead so you can see what training opportunities from us you will have throughout the year. 

We have designed this plan based on your feedback from the survey you completed for us, and using the principles of the Quality Framework. 

Events for April to June are now available to book through our training and events section, and we will add events to the website ahead of each quarter. 

The Health and Care Bill is expected to pass in time for changes to come into effect in July 2022. This transformation will change health and social care decision making across 42 ICS footprints. In turn, the way that people's experiences inform these decisions will also need to change. 

Local Healthwatch, have a vital role in ensuring that the public continues to be heard. Whilst they already do this within Local Authority boundaries (at 'place' level), they will now need to work together with other Healthwatch to ensure the system acts on what they hear from communities across wider areas. 

Common themes for success

Although every case study is different based on population needs in each area, there are some common themes for success which you could consider when working with your ICS or local Healthwatch.

• A formalised working agreement between local Healthwatch, which defines how you will work together.
• Clear roles and responsibilities for local Healthwatch when representing on Integrated Care Boards, partnerships and committees.
• Clarity on the local Healthwatch resources currently available and a realistic expectation about what ICS involvement is possible within these limitations.
• The ICS resources local Healthwatch representation, engagement and insight gathering.
• Local Healthwatch are proactive in demonstrating the support they can offer the ICS.
• Local Healthwatch coordinate the sharing of insight and learning from engagement of people and communities and use this expertise to inform system decision making.
• An agreement between local Healthwatch and ICS guides the relationship, recognising the autonomy of local Healthwatch.
• The role of local Healthwatch in development, delivery and governance of ICS people and communities engagement is clearly defined and championed by the ICS.
• The independent role of Local Healthwatch is understood and valued by the system.
• The ICS utilises the strength of local Healthwatch to ensure that the voice of the public is heard.

Our brand represents more than just a logo. The way we communicate, write, and present ourselves informs people about our values and how we can support them.

1. Visual guidelines
2. Language guidelines
3. Quick guides and cheat sheets
4. Brand templates and resources

1. Visual guidelines

What do our visual identity guidelines include?

Our brand shouldn't just stand out, it should be easy for us to use too. Our full vivisual identity guidelines include our values and beliefs, guidance on on tone of voice and personality, notes on how to use the Healthwatch logo, our brand colour palette and guidance on accessibility. 

2. Language guidelines

All you need to put the brand language into action are the following key documents:

1. Brand messaging guide: A one-page cheat sheet, including our strap line, proposition, tone of voice, and messages for different audiences. (Also available as a full document for printing.)

Download

2. Healthwatch descriptors: Short and long ‘about us’ text describing Healthwatch England and local Healthwatch. This also includes text you can copy/paste for your website and social media, as well as a handy checklist.

Download

3. Tone of voice guidelines: Includes top tips to write in our tone of voice, a style guide, writing about people and an accessibility guide.

Download

3. Quick guides and cheat sheets

The Healthwatch brand shouldn't just be accessible to the communities we serve, but also to you, the people who use it day in, and day out. So we've developed some quick quides and cheat sheets to help you understand our brand at a glance. 

4. Brand templates and resources

We've got lots of branded templates available to personalise and download on the Communications Centre (Brandstencil) – from PowerPoint templates, briefing templates, through to social media cards. You'll need to log in to be able to view these.
Communications Centre (Brandstencil)

We have Canva templates available too. We've created a range of Canva templates to use for social media, online and print publications. 

Canva Templates
 

If you create your own branded materials, please make sure you use our colour palette and check that the colour combinations you use for any text, headings or graphics are accessible.

About the guidance

At Healthwatch, we use various research methods to collect people's experiences of health and social care services.

Most commonly, we use surveys to gather this information. This guidance will help you through the steps of how to design a good quality survey in order to capture the most useful data for your research. This includes:

• How to develop a survey
• Guidance on writing survey questions and responses (question bank guidance)
• Sample survey questions, including demographics (question bank)

Got a question about research?

Join the Research Helpdesk Workplace group to ask questions, seek advice and request quality assurance from colleagues across the network. 

Join the Workplace group

As part of our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion, we set an objective for Healthwatch to have a diverse base of board members, staff and volunteers who reflect the communities we serve. 

As one of the steps along the way, we’re asking all Healthwatch to report on the demographic profile of their boards, staff and volunteers.

How will Healthwatch England collect this information?

We will collect this information using the Annual survey in July 2022.

To get a full picture, we will be asking all boards, staff and volunteers to complete the survey.

How will your Healthwatch collect the information?

To help you prepare, the survey prompts below will help you collect any information you need in advance.

Will this be confidential?

We understand collecting data on protected characteristics is sensitive, which is why this will remain confidential. When this information is collected via the Annual survey, you will be able to report data anonymously, without revealing which local Healthwatch you are from. We will ask each local Healthwatch to confirm that they have reported on this, so that we can understand representation across our network.

What will we do with this information?

The data we collect will help us see how reflective our network is compared to the population of England. The outcomes of this will also form part of the reporting of our Equality, diversity and inclusion roadmap going forward.

Please note we will only analyse data at national and regional levels – not at individual Healthwatch level.

About this resource

Focusing solely on the Drupal ten website template, we have created two resources - the getting started guide and the full website guidance. 

Getting started guide

This resource will guide you through everything you need to do to get your template ready to go live. The guidance includes: 

• Adding articles
• Updating pages
• Updating the homepage
• Website admin
• The support available from us

Full website guidance

This resource is an in-depth look at how to do everything on your website. It has steps broken down to make it easy to follow and screenshots along the way to help you navigate through Drupal ten. This resource includes:

• Content types
• Adding all article types
• Adding and editing blocks
• Webforms
• Adding new pages

Contents

• About this resource
• What is qualitative data, and why is it important to analyse?
• Before you start your analysis
• Five steps to help analyse your data
• Data saturation
• Top tips for reporting qualitative data
• Further reading

About this resource

Qualitative data is information that captures people's views, emotions, thoughts, and attitudes. Analysing qualitative data allows you to draw meaningful insights and discover patterns and relationships in your evidence.

This guide will help you recognise the steps you need to follow when analysing qualitative data so that you can improve your data analysis skills and produce impactful reports. There are top tips for reporting your analysis as well.

What is qualitative data, and why is it important to analyse?

When you analyse non-numeric information, such as interview transcripts, notes, audio/visual recordings, or even images, you are analysing qualitative data. 

Qualitative data analysis generates nuanced information and helps you understand the "why" and the "how". It enables you to comprehend experiences, phenomena, and context. At Healthwatch, you often collect qualitative data as free-text during one-to-one interviews, focus group discussions, feedback and signposting activities, or even via surveys.

Qualitative data analysis takes longer than quantitative data analysis because the researcher needs to read the free text before drawing on the insights. When analysing qualitative data, it's important to put oneself in another person's shoes and see things from their perspective. 

Before you start your analysis

• Organise your data – have your complete data set in one location, systematically arranged and easy to look at. You can use dedicated qualitative analysis software to help you keep your data organised, such as MAXQDA, NVivo or Quirkos.
• Mark any vital information that will help you with the analysis, such as participant demographics or location.
• Think about what you want to find out but be open-minded about unexpected discoveries.
• Stop analysing for a theme when you reach data saturation to avoid wasting time and resources. Scroll towards the end of this guide to learn more about data saturation.
• Be aware of researcher bias and take steps to minimise it.

Five steps to help analyse your data

1. Decide on your analytical approach

Before you do any analysis, think about how you will approach it. You can create a coding framework or use a thematic network analysis approach. You can also use a combination of the two.

Coding framework: Creating a coding framework means you decide the themes/topics you would be looking for in your data before the analysis. The codes help you create structured pre-determined labels which you can attach to the text in your data. You can use the codes to generate themes or link multiple codes to understand the relationship between the themes.

You could analyse using a coding framework when you undertake a piece of primary research, which has clear aims and objectives set right from the start. It means that you already know the themes you are interested in even before starting the analysis.   

Thematic network analysis: On the other hand, the thematic network analysis approach is exploratory. You develop codes and themes as you read your data. It starts without preconceived ideas and allows the data to help build a picture and an overall story.  

You could analyse using the thematic network analysis approach when looking at your feedback and signposting information or data gathered at a community engagement event. In these cases, you will explore the data without preconceived themes to determine what is happening in the local health and social care landscape. 

2. Review and explore your data

The next step is to read through your data, perhaps several times, to understand what it contains.

If you are unsure about something, you could ask the participant or another person who knows about it.

You should aim to try and understand the true feelings of your participants based on what they have said. Focus on their stories and what they mean for them.

Pay attention to the words used, particularly the intensity of the word. For example, "I felt uneasy about asking the doctor again, so I left" can be different from "I felt embarrassed to ask the doctor again, so I left". The latter is more intense than the former.

People with limited English may not express themselves adequately. It would be best if you tried to understand what they say rather than focus on the choice of words they have used. For example, if someone says, "I don't feel comfortable because I feel not good, I feel for example I have a problem plus my stress because of the language barrier". You can infer that they cannot express their concerns due to language barriers. And they feel stressed when they are unable to communicate.

3.  Code your data and build overarching themes

Organise the words or phrases into codes. Then build a theme or multiple themes with the codes, giving deeper meaning to your data.

4. Validate your analysis and the findings

As discussed, it is good practice to validate your analysis and findings to reduce the possibility of bias. If only one investigator is undertaking the research, they must follow a consistent coding and analysis method. If more than one staff is involved, make sure they follow a systematic approach. A coding framework with a clear rationale for every code is an excellent way to ensure your researchers are consistent.  

Once you have coded and analysed the data, ask a team member to do the same for a small sample of the data. You can compare their finding with yours to check for any differences. If there are differences, it doesn't necessarily mean one is correct and the other is wrong. You may have discovered another finding in the process.  

You can also ask for feedback from your research participants to check if your findings justify their opinions and sentiments.

5. Explain your findings

The essential last step of the process is to explain the meaning of what you have found. Reread your themes and findings and try to form a summary. Tying your themes together should help you get a better idea of the overall results and help you develop an accurate narrative of the data.

Relate the findings to the people who took part in your study. It is also the best time to look for differences in people's opinions from different demographic groups.

Data saturation

When undertaking qualitative data analysis, it is helpful to think about data saturation. Data saturation is the amount of qualitative data which is adequate to develop an accurate and robust understanding of the answers to your research question. Once you reach data saturation, any new information will not add additional value to your research. It would be best to stop collecting more data or analysing it to avoid wasting time and resources. 

Reaching data saturation in qualitative research depends on a few factors, such as what is your research question, who are your participants, your sampling and data collection method, and how rich is the information in your data.

If you are undertaking a qualitative research project at Healthwatch, typically involving 12 to 15 in-depth interview participants would help you reach data saturation. You can carry out a few more interviews or observations to be sure.

Top tips for reporting qualitative data

• Include a summary at the start of your report highlighting your key findings.
• Use your findings to tell a story – people often engage with stories better than they do with numbers and statistics.
• Demonstrate your findings with quotes from your research participants. It helps your readers connect with the experiences of another human being. 
• Do not use multiple quotes to support the same finding – one to two quotes per argument is plenty.
• Clean the quotes so they are readable. For example, correct spelling or grammatical errors, insert [missing words] in brackets, shorten long quotes with ellipses, and use quotation marks to make your quotes distinct. It is also helpful to write quotes in a larger font and/or different style. You can also use identifiers with your quotes to make them more relatable. For example: