Have your say

We aim to provide carers with a platform to speak up and make their voices heard on an individual and collective basis and to use their experiences to help to improve the services that are available to them and to the people they care for.

Our Involvement service offers carers a voice by:

• Informing and advising carers about how they can access services or compliment or complain about the services that they, or the person being cared for, receive.
• Involving carers in specialist Carers’ meetings and local Listening to Carers events.
• Enabling carers to participate in the planning, scrutiny and monitoring of health and social care services: Carers can give their views on the availability and quality of existing services and can work in partnership with other agencies to plan the provision of new services.
• Empower carers to speak up about what they need – perhaps a break from caring, a chance to get out, or counselling and the chance to talk through their concerns.
• Feeding back carers’ views to County Councillors and other planners to decide strategies and priorities in social and primary health care.
• Building up a picture of carers’ concerns and difficulties every time a contact is made with Carers in Hertfordshire, which can be used to inform service planning in other agencies.

Consultations and Co-production

One way carers and former carers can be involved in shaping and co-producing services is by responding to consultations. We sometimes organise our own surveys and consultations or share details of those from organisations we work closely with such as Hertfordshire County Council, NHS services in Hertfordshire, Healthwatch Hertfordshire and Carers UK. Here are the current consultations and surveys:

Hertfordshire County Council consultations

Advocacy Services

Hertfordshire County Council funds independent advocacy services to ensure that the most vulnerable can have their voices heard in conversations about their care and support and to promote individual choice and control in decisions that will affect their future. The organisations currently running these advocacy services are:

• People Of here Want Equal Rights (POhWER) – advocacy for adults aged 18 – 65 with disabilities
• Hertfordshire Independent Living Service (HILS) – advocacy for those aged 65+
• VoiceAbility – advocacy for those with mental health issues

The current contracts finish in June 2024 and the Council is reviewing the advocacy services available in Hertfordshire to inform future arrangements. They would like to hear from as many people as possible.

You can join the conversation about advocacy services in Hertfordshire by completing a survey and/or attending a workshop. Information about the workshops is featured at the end of the surveys.

• Anonymous survey for Hertfordshire residents: https://surveys.hertfordshire.gov.uk/s/A3HO6C/ 
• Survey for professionals in Hertfordshire: https://surveys.hertfordshire.gov.uk/s/5LYN53/

Other Hertfordshire County Council consultations

You can find Hertfordshire County Council’s current consultations, on ALL topics on the council’s website via this link – Hertfordshire County Council Consultations.

Carers Representation Group

We have a Carers Representation Group that gives carers the opportunity to discuss concerns and issues related to health and care services in Hertfordshire and their caring role and to respond to consultations about service developments.
The Group links in with Hertfordshire County Council’s Carers’ Planning and Partnership Group that monitors and discusses services and support for carers in the county. The Group meets at least four times a year and if you are interested in getting involved, please contact us to discuss.

Co-production

Co-production brings professionals together with service users and carers to combine their skills, knowledge and lived experience to have their say on local services and influence how they may be delivered in the future. People work together to design, improve, review or monitor services.

In Hertfordshire there are various co-production boards, each with a specific focus, for example dementia or physical disabilities. You can find out more about Co-production in Hertfordshire on Hertfordshire County Council’s website.