What we're working on
This page highlights our current research projects where we're asking the public for their experiences to help improve care. We will update each project with more information on how you can get involved as they progress.
Maternal mental health campaign
We ran a national survey to understand if mental health care works for new mothers and birthing parents.
What are we doing?
We ran a six week campaign to collect experiences of new mothers and birthing parents about mental health support. We’ve also issued a Freedom of Information request to all Integrated Care Systems ( ICSs) asking them about six week checks for new mothers and how they monitor the support.
What do we want to achieve?
We want to improve mental health support in maternity care and ensure birthing parents are supported before, during and after giving birth, with a focus on the six-week check. We want to show what is currently not working on a service level and ensure families are offered quality support, in line with clinical guidelines.
What is next?
We are currently analysing people's responses. We expect to publish our findings in March 2023.
GP referrals
Over the course of the pandemic we've looked at people's experiences of GP access, digital exclusion and elective care. Referrals from GPs to other NHS services in the missing piece across this work.
By understanding people's experiences of referrals we will have a better picture of the whole patient journey, from initial symptoms to treatment. We also know there is a data gap regarding re-referrals across the NHS, which through our campaign we can help address.
What did we do?
We ran a four week campaign to collect people's feedback of GP referrals. We heard from over 1,800 people about their expereinces.
What is next?
We are analysing what people told us and will publish our findings in early 2023. We'll share more detail closer to the time of publication.
Accessible health and care information
What did we do?
We launched 'Your Care Your Way', a campaign that aims to:
- Find out how well health and care services deliver the accessible information standard.
- Make sure that you know your rights if the standard covers you.
- Find out who else has problems understanding information about their healthcare and should be covered by the standard.
What have we achieved?
In partnership with local Healthwatch and charities, we have:
- Raised awareness of the rights that people have.
- Published our findings about what people have told us.
- Shared recommendations with NHS England.
NHS England is now looking at how they can improve the Accessible Information Standard. Once they publish their findings, we will decide on our next steps.
Urgent and emergency care
Throughout the pandemic, people have been telling us about their experiences of urgent or emergency care. Over half of this feedback has been negative. More recently we have also been hearing from people at A&E departments are overwhelmed, understaffed or just very busy, leading to long waiting times.
What have we done?
We have published a review of our evidence over the past two years and findings from a poll we ran which covered:
- How confidence in A&E has changed over the pandemic.
- How reduced access to dentists and GPs has had an impact on people's use of emergency care.
- How people's experiences match the negativity being portrayed in the media.
- Whether people are able to get the care they need if they are unable to access urgent or emergency treatment
Unmet social care needs
Last year the Government announced funding and charging social care reforms. However, the focus of this announcement was how to raise more funds to hopefully improve care for those currently in the system and how to prevent them facing catastrophic costs for that care. We want to broaden the debate by finding out what is happening to those who are missing out on social care support at the moment.
What have we done?
We have been collecting people's experiences of social care via our national feedback form. In May 2022 we also ran polling to examine public awareness of social care and the experience of those who had sough support.
What is next?
Social care will also be the focus of our next national campaign. We will therefore use these findings as a way to announce that we are planning to run a new investigation of social care, to understand the problems people face and the steps that will help make support better.
What other issues are we looking at?
We have also published evidence briefings on:
Our next briefing will be on Children and Adolescent Mental health services.
