Building Connections: Healthwatch Richmond at South West London Mental Health and Research Events

News - 19 May 2025

As part of our ongoing engagement with services, organisations and research within South West London, the Healthwatch Richmond staff have recently attended two exciting events.

Katie stands next to a stall promoting healthwatch richmond

On the 14th of May our Communications, Engagement and Project Officer Colombine Nuquet attended the South West London Mental Health Conference organised by South West London and St. George's Mental Health NHS Trust. The conference revolved around three major themes:

Children and Young People,
Health Inequalities,
Prevention of Crisis.

The trust and the community sector presented their thorough and collaborative work, and service users came to present their lived experience. The conference's sessions and discussions were insightful, and we are excited to hear more about the Trust's actions and initiatives for mental health patients, and how Healthwatch Richmond's work can continue to work with these services.

A board of post it notes suggesting ways to improve health inequalities

Also on the 14th of May, Project Officers Katie Rogers and Suzanne Kapelus, as well as Chief Officer Mike Derry, attended the inaugural South West London Health Research Summit held in Twickenham. It was a great opportunity to hear about the wide range of health and social care research within SWL, the commitments to research from NHS colleagues, and to share Healthwatch's role in researching the patient voice in health and social care. Project Officer Suzanne Kapelus also had the opportunity to present a poster summarising her insightful work on patient experiences of General Practice within Richmond. A copy of this poster can be downloaded below.

These two events were great opportunities to engage with health and social care services in SWL, and to promote the importance of the patient voice. We look forward to continuing to attend these events in the future.