Community Healthcare for Young People Focus Groups Report
In the autumn of 2020 Public Health Northamptonshire and NHS Northamptonshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) commissioned us to carry out some focus groups with young people to find out more about their views and experiences of community health and wellbeing services. The focus groups were designed to answer some of the questions raised by the results of Northamptonshire County Council (NCC) and Northamptonshire CCG August 2020 surveys for children, young people and their families.
To find out more about what young people think we gathered their views at three focus groups across the county in September 2020.
What we found
- Young people told us that being treated by friendly staff in clean environments was important to them and that the person treating them should show confidence and know what they are doing and respect their privacy.
- Young people did not always feel involved in the care that they received, but when they did, it was a positive experience.
- Overall young people did not want to receive healthcare services online. They were also not keen on receiving health messages digitally through targeted advertising although some did say they might click on a targeted advert link if they needed help at that time.
- There were concerns around receiving care online, such as online safety, security, confidentiality and not knowing who could be trusted, as well as about the level of care they would receive. Most young people we spoke to still wanted to receive healthcare services face to face.
- The young people we spoke to told us that they’d like to see more opportunities for outdoor exercise, such a skate parks, and there were some suggestions for improvements to current services, such as shorter waiting times.
This report will form part of wider engagement activity to help Northamptonshire CCG and Public Health Northamptonshire understand where, as a system, services are right and where the gaps are that need a solution to improve and modernise services for the future.
"NHS Northamptonshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Public Health Northamptonshire are incredibly appreciative of the work that Esther and the team at Healthwatch Northamptonshire have undertaken to meet with local children and young people to explore their views on Northamptonshire’s children and young people’s community health and wellbeing services. This report will form part of wider engagement activity to help us understand where, as a system, services are right and where the gaps are that need a solution to improve and modernise services for the future. Thank you to all the young people and schools who took part and for sharing your views and experiences with us, we are grateful for your insight and will use the information collected to improve services and service access across Northamptonshire."
- Response from NHS Northamptonshire Clinical Commissioning Group and Public Health Northamptonshire
