Giving a voice to the seldom heard: How local Healthwatch is changing local health and care

Across Haringey, Barnet, Croydon and Hounslow, four Healthwatch services, all delivered by Public Voice, have spent the past year reaching into communities whose experiences of health and social care are too often missing from the data that shapes local services. From Latin American residents unaware of the risks of Chagas disease to deafblind patients assessing a new BSL interpretation service, the essential work of our local Healthwatch demonstrates what happens when listening becomes the starting point for change. 

In July 2026, each of our local Healthwatch services published an annual report highlighting the positive changes to health and care services that happen when our teams connect with patients and residents in each of the boroughs they serve. 

“…the work of our four local Healthwatch demonstrates that meaningful, independent engagement with patients, residents, and seldom-heard communities isn’t a single initiative but a sustained practice. One built on trusted relationships, culturally specific outreach, and a willingness to go into community centres, food banks, places of worship and people’s own homes rather than waiting for people to come forward.”

Why an independent voice matters 

Health and care systems function better when there is a genuinely independent voice able to surface uncomfortable truths and reach people that commissioners and providers routinely miss. Healthwatch is not part of the NHS, a council, or a care provider, and that independence is what lets it sit within communities and hear things that wouldn’t otherwise reach decision-makers. 

Healthwatch Haringey: Language, trust and access 

A crucial piece of work conducted by Healthwatch Haringey this year was their engagement with local Latin American communities. A multilingual survey, supported by eight Spanish-language interviews reaching people from ten different Latin American countries, uncovered a startling gap in public health knowledge: 68% of respondents had never heard of Chagas disease, a condition of particular relevance to Latin American communities, and 86% had never used a community group to help them access care. 

Behind the statistics were personal stories, including one respondent’s account of how language barriers and the physical toll of cleaning work had combined to damage their health over time. Healthwatch Haringey presented the report to the local authority, secured the publication of Chagas disease information in the Haringey GP newsletter, and is now planning a report launch in partnership with the Wards Corner Community Benefit Society (CBS) and the Coalition of Latin Americans in the UK (CLAUK). 

Healthwatch Haringey also turned its attention to Turkish and Kurdish-speaking communities, beginning with an event at the Alevi Centre in Wood Green. What emerged went beyond language barriers alone: participants described being treated as “suspect communities” and highlighted a lack of health information and interventions tailored to their needs. 

Elsewhere, regular meetings with Somali, Polish and Turkish-speaking community representatives exposed gaps in interpreter communication skills, instances of over-diagnosis, and inadequate sense-checking with patients who don’t speak English as a first language, an insight that is now feeding directly into conversations about how interpretation and translation services should work in practice. 

The organisation also refreshed its Patient Participation Group (PPG) Network, broadening the base of people attending across Haringey’s GP surgeries so that feedback better reflects the patient voice and diversity of the borough, and ran Women’s Health sessions through the Triangle Family Hub and Women’s Health Hub clinicians to reach women from minoritised backgrounds who are less likely to access gynaecological services. 

Healthwatch Barnet: Bringing communities into the room 

In November 2025, Healthwatch Barnet brought together more than 60 people from grassroots groups along patients experiencing health inequalities to speak directly with senior NHS staff designing the borough’s new neighbourhood health service. Co-organised with the Barnet Patient Participation Network, the Somali Centre of Excellence, and the Romanian and Eastern European Hub, the event ensured that people in financial hardship, often excluded from service design conversations, had a direct say in shaping the new service. 

The event sat within a much broader year of engagement: 322 research participants from minority ethnic communities contributed data to projects spanning physical activity, digital inclusion, primary care access and reasonable adjustments in A&E. 

One research strand looked at access to exercise among people with long-term health conditions. Surveying 113 people, Healthwatch Barnet found that 52% had no disposable income at all, and a further 23% had only small amounts to spare, evidence that affordability and not simply personal choice is often the real barrier to staying active. The findings have gone on to inform Barnet Council’s Fit and Active Barnet Strategy. 

Individual advocacy work also made a difference to people navigating the system alone. Ms J, a non-English speaker, was supported through communication barriers around delayed hospital treatment, while Ms R was helped to navigate Adult Social Care while under significant financial pressure. Both cases illustrate the kind of one-to-one support that sits alongside Healthwatch Barnet’s wider research. 

To tackle digital exclusion directly, the organisation distributed its ‘Access Your GP’ guide through food banks, libraries and religious centres, meeting harder-to-reach residents where they already are, rather than waiting for them to come forward. 

Healthwatch Croydon: Culturally relevant care and underserved areas 

A volunteer-led project organised by Healthwatch Croydon has shone new light on the experiences of Black African and Caribbean patients living with Type 2 diabetes. Led by university placement volunteer Benedict Okafor, the project surveyed 82 patients and found that while 92% had received advice from a healthcare professional, only 61% were aware of the services available to help them manage their condition. The project concluded that “significant barriers still exist around culturally relevant care, lifestyle advice and mental health support”, findings that have since been recognised by service providers and commissioners as valuable insight for building more inclusive diabetes care. 

Healthwatch Croydon also joined forces with all six South West London Healthwatch organisations to engage deaf and deafblind communities, their carers, and GP practice staff, assessing how well the services of a new British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation provider had been implemented in GP practices. The resulting recommendations, aimed at both GP practices and the local NHS Integrated Care System, are now the subject of ongoing meetings with stakeholders as Healthwatch Croydon presses for improvements. 

Ahead of the opening of a new Community Diagnostic Centre in New Addington, an area that has historically lacked local health services, Healthwatch Croydon sought out residents directly, running a ten-person focus group and a 40-person survey to make sure the community’s views shaped what was ultimately built there. 

Healthwatch Hounslow: From vaccine hesitancy to individual crisis support 

Healthwatch Hounslow’s Winter Wellness Campaign stands out as one of the year’s most far-reaching pieces of engagement. Working through mosques, gurdwaras, temples and community hubs, the campaign reached 510 residents directly, 453 of them from South Asian communities, and a further 1,326 people through wider digital and outreach activity, all in an effort to understand and address flu vaccine hesitancy. 

The campaign highlighted strong concerns among residents about vaccine side effects, eligibility and trust, insight that went on to directly inform NHS West and North London’s approach to vaccination outreach. James Connell of NHS West and North London praised the work by name, crediting Healthwatch Hounslow for enabling a “geographic, population health approach”. 

Alongside this large-scale campaign, Healthwatch Hounslow’s casework told a more individual story. An asylum seeker living in temporary accommodation had been left without the mental health support she had been promised, and was also struggling to access employment and housing help. Healthwatch Hounslow intervened directly, securing the mental health support she needed and connecting her with employment guidance and housing advice, turning a stalled referral into real, practical help. 

The organisation’s ‘Health in the Park’ event brought together more than 300 residents in a single gathering, surfacing issues that rarely make it into formal health data: postpartum mental health, maternity care, support for asylum seekers and migrants, and the experiences of residents in assisted living. 

Finally, an Extra Care Housing project saw 36 residents interviewed across four sites, 83% of them living with a disability, giving a seldom-heard group a direct route to shape understanding of independence, socialisation and catering provision in supported housing. 

A shared mission across four boroughs 

Together, the work of our four local Healthwatch over the past year demonstrates that meaningful, independent engagement with patients, residents, and seldom-heard communities isn’t a single initiative but a sustained practice: one built on trusted relationships, culturally specific outreach, and a willingness to go into community centres, food banks, places of worship and people’s own homes rather than waiting for people to come forward.