Your Feedback

Under Review When the BHU campaign, along with Surrey Healthwatch, made representations to the Adults & Health Select Committee of Surrey County Council on 4 September 2017, the Committee did not agree that the closure of the Blanche Heriot Unit (BHU) should be delayed for at least six months as we had strongly recommended. We made that recommendation as it was apparent to us that adequate arrangements had not been made to replace the services provided by BHU. Subsequent events have shown our concerns to have been well founded with issues around the level of communications about the new service, problems with access, difficulties in using the online or telephone booking systems and long delays to obtain appointments. The campaign is represented on a working group set up by the commissioners to monitor the service and we shall be pleased to report individual patient experiences of the new arrangements for sexual health and HIV services in Surrey to that group. You can contact us, in confidence, on bhupatients@gmail.com We can collate patient feedback in general terms and will only report your individual experience with your consent. You can also contact Surrey Healthwatch at enquiries@healthwatchsurrey.co.uk Surrey Healthwatch have an official role to monitor the effective delivery of health care services in Surrey and are keen to hear from individual patients, whose experiences will be captured and anonymised. Communications Survey Although, as we have noted, the Adults & Health Select Committee did not support our proposal for a six month delay in closing BHU they were concerned to hear at their meeting last September about the lack of engagement and consultation with BHU patients, GPs and other interested parties about the closure of this highly successful and valued Clinic. They therefore decided to set up a Task Group to review how Surrey County Council and NHS England (the joint commissioners of the service) engaged with residents regarding the introduction of the new service and the changes arising from its implementation. We have been advised that, as part of this review, “the Task Group is eager to hear from patients, potential patients and stakeholders regarding how they were involved in the development and implementation of the new service to understand what lessons can be learned around effective public engagement. This survey is your chance to tell the Task Group anonymously how you were communicated with around the introduction of the new service thereby helping the Council and NHS England to recognise how it can engage more effectively in the future.” We would like to see BHU reopen and the service to be fully reinstated but, if that is not possible, we want to ensure that there is no repeat of the flawed process that caused it to close. So please take the opportunity to have your say and complete the survey that has just been published on the Surrey Says hub – here is the link: https://www.surreysays.co.uk/legal-and-democratic-services/sexual-health-services-survey/ The survey closes on 21 March 2018.