Thank you to everyone who took part in our recent survey on our newsletter, Health and Social Care News East Sussex, and congratulations to our three prize draw winners!
The survey asked what you thought was working well with the newsletter and what could improve. We received lots of helpful feedback and suggestions. In this article you can read about what we heard, and what we’ll do next.
Who took part?
70 of you took part and shared your views. We heard from a broad range of people, including local residents, staff working in health and care, volunteers, and people working for charities and voluntary organisations. The majority who took part said they were a member of the public.
What did you tell us?
People had heard of the newsletter in a range of ways, but most commonly through East Sussex County Council.
Most people agreed that the newsletter meets its four aims, which are to share information and advice that:
- supports you to stay healthy and independent for as long as possible,
- helps you know how and where to get information, advice, and support when you need it,
- helps you engage in relevant opportunities to shape the future of local health and care services, through things like surveys and events, and
- keeps you informed on major developments in our local health and care system, and our progress in working more closely together in a joined-up way.
Most people agreed the newsletter used clear language and pictures, that the links and further actions to take are clear, and that the articles are about the right length. The majority of people often get health and care news here that they wouldn’t get elsewhere.
The top reasons for subscribing were to get the latest news on health and care, for health and wellbeing advice, to hear about NHS services and to hear about adult social care.
The topics that most people wanted to read more about were:
- Information on service updates and changes
- Health focused news
- Information on NHS and social care’s plans for the future
- Health and wellbeing information and advice.
About half of the people who took part had taken an action after reading the newsletter, like taking part in a survey or reading more about a topic.
What we’ll do next
We’re planning to promote the newsletter more widely to encourage even more people to sign up, to join the 11,200 of you who already receive it. We’ll do this through our websites, social media, and by encouraging word of mouth recommendations. So, if you know someone who you think would like to sign up, please let them know about it!
We’ll also focus on the types of stories that you’ve told us you want to hear about most, and make sure we bring you more news in these areas. As people were fairly equally interested in news about health and social care, we’ll make sure we keep bringing you news on both. We’ll also aim to be really clear where you can go to learn more, or what actions you can take after reading a story.
You may also have noticed a slightly new look to the newsletter, as we’ve made the format even simpler and easy to scroll through.
If you didn’t take part in the survey, it’s never too late to tell us what you think. You can continue to share your feedback on the newsletter and suggestions for topics you’d like to hear more about though our contact form.