Healthwatch Rochdale publish report showing how local people want to receive information from organisations.
This report follows an earlier report published by Healthwatch Rochdale in summer 2020 ‘Covid -19 Residents Survey and Focus Group’ which was carried out to understand the experience of local people living through the Covid 19 pandemic. A finding from this piece of research was that some residents were not satisfied with the information and advice they had received during Covid 19. Following this, Healthwatch Rochdale decided to carry out a further survey to identify how local people would like to receive information and advice and how this could be made more accessible.
The survey had a total of 683 responses with 459 responses being received digitally. Findings from the research showed that:
- 54% of respondents said they would prefer to receive information through the post as a letter
- 54% of respondents said their preferred place to pick up information and leaflets was the supermarket
- 33% of respondents said information could be made more accessible to them through the production of easy read formats
Following these findings Healthwatch Rochdale made the following recommendations:
- For Equality Impact Assessments to be carried out to ensure that information and advice is accessible and meet the needs of Rochdale Borough residents
- For statutory organisations to liaise with local voluntary and community organisations to identify the best way of communicating with different communities
- For organisations to provide information in paper format as well as digital to reach the digitally excluded
- Information to be available to pick up at the supermarket
- Information to be made available in an easy read format
Credible and accurate information is important at all times but even more so in a public health crisis. The Council, the CCG and their partners have done a very good job of making information available. But there is always room for improvement and these recommendations aim at strengthening the great work already being done to ensure local information is accessible to all communities. Healthwatch Rochdale will continue to work with local people to see how this can be improved.”