Professional Services
Are you working in health and social care in Essex and need help to engage with patients or undertake high quality research? We can provide expertise in patient experience, engagement, research and co-production. As an independent body we can provide valuable insight into services, policy and strategy. Check out what we can offer below and if you want more information don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Engagement
We are experts in working with patients and the people who use health and social care services to co-design the services of the future. There are a number of ways we can support effective engagement across systems.
Our engagement team is passionate about influencing change across the health and care sector. We do this in a varied and flexible fashion, which often involves providing a platform from which people can share their stories and experiences relevant to the health and social care system. In particular, we strive to engage with under-represented voices to uncover seldom addressed issues, even when this means going against the grain of existing strategies and initiatives. We can assist members of the public and stakeholders across the health and social care environment in areas such as:
- Drawing greater attention to important health and social care issues encountered by services users, professionals and the public
- Conducting short-term projects on issues that health and social care stakeholders need further insight on as a matter of urgency
- Assisting stakeholders to engage with specific demographics and populations
- Advice on creative methods for conducting public and patient engagement
- Service evaluation
Research
We design, conduct and disseminate rigorous, in-depth qualitative research informed by lived experience methodologies. We can help organisations, fellow researchers and professionals in a number of ways.
Healthwatch Essex produce high-quality academic-level research underpinned by the lived experiences of Essex residents. We make sure that the voices of people in Essex are recognised in academia, helping to fill gaps in existing literature. Our research informs health and social care policy at local and national levels. We’re committed to making our research as inclusive and as accessible as possible, in terms of who participates in our projects and who reads our final outputs.
Our research staff are qualified to doctoral level in qualitative research methods and Masters level in quantitative approaches. We have expertise in co-production, creative research methods, health activism, psychology, public health, and women’s health. Our Research Ambassador Network are also an excellent forum for gathering insights on how academic research can be more accessible and inclusive.
We can assist researchers and professionals in the following areas:
- Qualitative and mixed methods study design
- Lived experience and mixed methods data collection
- Data analysis
- Training in co-production and a range of research methods
- Collaborative feedback on developing research projects, as supported by our Research Ambassador Network
- Employability support
- Research supervision
You can read each of our team’s research profiles below:
Information & Guidance
Our Information & Guidance Team help people to understand and navigate health and care in Essex. As a result they have their finger on the pulse of the issues which most matter to the public.
Our experienced team in the Information & Guidance Service help people access, understand, and navigate health, care and wellbeing services in Essex. Our free, confidential service is available to support the public and professionals with their enquiries via telephone, online, text, live webchat and WhatsApp. We listen and empower the individual to know the choices available to them and how to access them.
Our Information & Guidance Team can offer an invaluable resource for professionals in the provision of guidance and signposting support, with our extensive service directory holding details of the health, care and wellbeing services and pathways available in the county for the varying needs of service users.
As specialists in gathering lived experience, our highly trained team can be commissioned for support with survey and consultation work. We can engage with participants who would prefer to voice their stories through an independent body, or who prefer to be involved through conversation rather than digital means. This can hugely increase engagement levels and enrich data with the voices of those who may not otherwise be heard.
The team are also available for commissioning of targeted pieces of work where lived experience is needed at the core. We can coordinate and deliver reports of outstanding qualitative data to inform and support service provision, strategy and operational development.