Consultations

Green Social Prescribing means giving people access to organised activities, outside in nature, in order to improve their mental and physical health. Surrey is trialing this, and one of the focuses is carers’ mental health – this survey will help them plan this new support, and asks what factors infuence YOUR health.

Surrey County Council and NHS partners have published their five-year joint health and social care Dementia Strategy for Surrey. It sets out how services will work together to improve the lives of people with dementia, their families and carers, with an ambition to create dementia-friendly communities across the county. Healthwatch Surrey surveyed people with dementia and their carers to help create the plan. This consultation is asking people living with dementia, their families and professionals to have their say. They want to know if you think they have captured the right ambitions and priorities. If you care for someone with dementia, please completed the survey. CLOSES 21 JANUARY

Surrey County Council is working in partnership with Surrey Coalition of disabled People and We Coproduce to create a new strategy for Direct Payments across the whole of Surrey. They are interested in hearing your experience and thoughts about Direct Payments in your own words to help to understand how Direct Payments are working, and how they can work better. The survey should take less than 5 minutes to complete. CLOSES 10th January.

It appears that more children and young people are experiencing school anxiety. Family Voice Surrey want to find out more about the scale of anxiety and its impact on families. They will use the information to feed into the work happening around ‘emotionally-based school non-attendence’ with SCC and the NHS in Surrey. Please complete the survey if your child/young person is experiencing any kind of school-based anxiety. If you have more than one child experiencing this issue, please do a new survey for each, thank you.) ENDS 31 JANUARY.

SCC and the NHS are piloting a new service, aimed at better supporting the carers of people who are using mental health support services. As well as give carers more help, taking a whole family approach, the new servie will look to ensure mental health settings and services are more carer-friendly. They want carers with experiences of looking after someone who’s using mental health services, to feed into the design of this new service, initially attending group discussions on line. The first session will ask carers ‘what does good look like’ and ‘what needs to improve’, and are on Monday 20th December 12–1.30pm or Wednesday 22nd December 6–7.30pm. To get involved, or find out more, please contact Jo Neville-Rye at [email protected]

Researchers from the Applied Research Collaboration Kent, Surrey and Sussex, would like to speak with older LGBTQ+ individuals who may move to residential care in the near future, who currently live in residential care in Kent, Surrey or Sussex, or carers of older LGBTQ+ individuals. There’s two focus groups, one on 8th December (evening) and one 7th January (morning). The groups will discuss your experiences and views on residential care, which will inform a research project aiming to promote more inclusive care for older LGBTQ+ individuals. £20 voucher for participation. Email [email protected]

Opportunity for a carer to help shape the Surrey Joint Carers Programme as a Carers Lay Chair. Bring your lived experience, insight and skills to this key lay leadership role.

Service users and carers are invited to have their say on changes to mental health services in Surrey which will give them easy access to specialist care in their GP's surgery for the first time. In a 3-year pilot project, the NHS in Surrey and North East Hampshire are running a pilot approach to providing mental health services, which will also enable people to get their mental health, physical health and social care needs all met at their GP’s surgery. The new system should be better integrated and stop people falling between the gaps. Do you want a say in shaping these new services so they’re best designed to help patients and carers? Come to our new monthly groups. To take part, email [email protected]

Surrey County Council would like to chat one-to-one with young carers (along with an adult in their life) to hear about what their life is like – what they find challenging, what they find helps and what their hopes and dreams are for the future. This will help SCC write a new strategy so that they can make sure services that help young carers will continue to help young people in the future. The chats will be on a video call and will be for about 45 minutes. You will receive £7 of Amazon vouchers as a thank you! If you are interested and are available, then they’d love to hear from you! Please email [email protected]

Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust would like to hear the views of people in Surrey on the use of digital technology in healthcare. The survey results will enable the trust to design and shape new services.

HELP IMPROVE THE ACCESSIBILITY OF NHS 111! The RNIC is working with NHSEI to explore how the NHS 111 service could be made better for people who are deaf or have hearing loss. RNID is supporting NHSEI to recruit volunteers to provide their feedback over an interactive online platform, where volunteers can discuss their needs and share their ideas for service improvements, including a project looking into SMS as a way to contact NHS 111.

Surrey's Independent Mental Health Network are carrying out a short survey regarding mental health crisis support during the current Coronavirus pandemic. Please click to complete the survey.

A Lancaster Univerity study is invetigating difficulties in words that describe physical movement in people with Parkinson’s , and the effect of lifestyle on these difficulties. The research will be conducted online through several brief questionnaires and a few online computer tasks. The study has received ethical approval from Lancaster University Faculty of Science and Technology. The study wants people (aged 50-80) with Parkinson's to complete it AND unaffected, healthy individuals. Click the image for more info, or email [email protected] CLOSES 1 MARCH.

Researchers at Liverpool University’s Psychology Department are exploring the experiences of bereaved carers, who have lost the person they cared for during the COVID-19 period. This research will help to gain insight from the carer’s perspective and contribute to improving support for other bereaved carers in the future. They are seeking people to share their experiences, confidentially, in a short interview over Zoom/Microsoft Teams.

A new research projects wants to interview people to understand what supports have best helped your wellbeing after your family left the military. It’s an hour long, confidential phone interview with a researcher. And you can choose to be entered into a prize draw for a £50 gift card. Contact researchers to find out more on [email protected] Project runs well into 2022.

This important Carers Trust survey wants to hear from carers over 18 about their needs, their experiences of support, and views on the social care system, and the support they need. These findings in turn will be used in advocacy work and to campaign through the media for far greater support for unpaid carers within social care. Full details on the first page of the survey. CLOSES 25 NOVEMBER.

The NHS England Commitment to Carers team are holding a series of bi-monthly lunch and learn webinars aiming to bring together carers and professionals from across the country in an informal atmosphere to collaborate, learn and drive the delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan commitment to carers. They are taking place from this November, through to November 2022. To register your interest or if you have any questions please email: [email protected] CLOSES NOVEMBER 2022.

A researcher at City University, London, is carrying out interviews with men aged 25+ who were raised by a parent with a psychotic illness (e.g. Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder) to understand the impact that being raised by such a parent had on them. Little previous research has been conducted in this area and the researcher hopes to help shed light on this important subject to inform healthcare providers. CLOSES MARCH 2022.

Researchers at UCL would like to speak to young carers aged 13-24 years old and staff working with young carers about the impact of the pandemic on mental health, wellbeing and access to support. The interview would last around 45 minutes and would take place via telephone or video call. You will be offered a £10 gift voucher to thank you for your time. Click to find out more, or contact Alex [email protected] You can also register your interest here www.tinyurl.com/C19socialstudy and a researcher will be in touch. CLOSES 1 NOVEMBER.

Following the government's committment in September to extend the rights of carers to flexible working and unpaid leave, they have a further, broad consultation open now, about flexible working. If you're a carer, please add your views to this too. CLOSES 1 DECEMBER.

King's College London are looking for carers to take part in a study about carers' resilience. Resilience is the ability to adapt to or ‘bounce back’ from difficulty. We know that carers can show resilience, living with long-term stress and adapting tochallenging circumstances. We also know that caregiving can impact carers’ own wellbeing. Can you help the study find out more about carer resilience and wellbeing, and the different ways of thinking that drive resilience. They hope to use what they find to create new ways to support carers. There's a prize draw for participation with the chance to win vouchers. APPLICATIONS CLOSE 29 OCTOBER.

Have you experienced changes to the number of paid care workers you receive at home, or had a review of your situation? Researchers at Newcastle University and Northumbria University would like to talk to carers/families who have had care at home where there has been a change to the number of paid care workers, or a review. They are interested in negative experiences as well as positive ones. A research will get in touch with, if you are interested in taking part. The research will be used to make recommendations on how such changes/reviews should be carried out.