Why volunteer with us?
- Make a difference in your local community by giving people the opportunity to speak up about their health and social care
- Make new friends as you become part of the Healthwatch County Durham team
- Boost your CV as you develop new skills and confidence in the workplace
- Use your skills to contribute to the success of Healthwatch across County Durham
1,843 Hours
Were given up over the last year by Healthwatch County Durham volunteers to make a difference to local health and care services.
(From April 2020- March 2021)
Engagement Volunteer
Our engagement volunteers are given the opportunity to attend events to hand out information and start up conversations with members of the public about health and social care experiences. They help gather and record people’s views on health and social care services, and provide local knowledge to support the Engagement Leaders’ activities in their home area.
Enter and View Representative
Our authorised representatives help conduct formal Enter and View visits to health and social care services to observe the service being provided, and speak to staff, carers, family and service users in order to get direct feedback.
Meeting Representative Volunteer
Some of our volunteers represent Healthwatch County Durham at meetings of service providers (e.g. Hospices or mental health providers) or service users (e.g. GPs’ patient participation groups) or organisations representing patients (e.g. Age UK, People’s Parliament) etc., reporting on recent activity, and then report any relevant issues or opportunities back to us.
Healthwatcher
Our Healthwatchers support Healthwatch County Durham by, for example distributing publicity leaflets, informing local people and networks about our service, hosting a ‘comments box’ or encouraging members of the public to complete comments cards, return cards to the Healthwatch Office Manager and ask for new cards as necessary.
My favorite thing about volunteering is being able to have a positive impact on service user experiences