Vascular Surgery Issue

Help shape health and social care in Portsmouth

With so many changes to health and social care services, it’s even more important that your views are heard.

You can have a say on the future of these services by getting involved in the Portsmouth LINk.

The LINk acts on behalf of patients and residents to help make sure health and social care services in the city are the best they can be.

In November Portsmouth LINk is holding an election for a new steering group, which will tackle key health and social care issues in the city and represent users. The results of the election will be announced at a public meeting starting at 6pm on 24 November at the John Pounds Centre, Portsea.

This event will also give an update on LINk’s work and will include a ‘question time’ panel.

If you’d like to become a LINk member, stand for the election or take part in the meeting, contact victor.vine@portsmouthcc.gov.uk or call 023 9284 1388.

The LINk will soon become part of a new watchdog organisation, Healthwatch. If you wish to be included in the work of the LINk as it develops into Healthwatch, please complete our quick survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Z7BG7SB

Click here for LINk Election Process

Elections for Steering Group Membership

The Portsmouth Local Involvement Network (LINk) will shortly be holding elections for Steering Group Membership.

If you are interested in standing for election please submit a short candidate statement.

Your candidate statement can either be a short written article (up to 500 words) or it can be a video or audio file.

All candidate statements will be published on the Portsmouth LINk Blog.

If you require any support in producing your candidate statement contact the LINk Support Officer, Victor Vine (please see the “contact us” page of this Blog).

If you would also like to stand for election as Chair or Vice Chair of the Steering Group (or one of the Sub-Groups) please include this information with your candidate statement. You can do this by simply stating, for example, “I am also interested in standing for the post of Chair of the Steering Group”.

The Portsmouth LINk invites both nominations and self nominations for these posts.

Full details about the election process will be published shortly.

Health and Social Care at University

Health and social care is important for everyone; and in particular for university students. Such a diverse range of people requires careful attention to ensure that every individual feels that their needs are met. But is this the case?

When we first started university last year, never having been to Portsmouth before, we were pleasantly surprised by the range of services that the university provides and their close proximity to both halls of residence and the main campus buildings. From the doctor’s surgery and dentist to the chaplaincy service, we felt welcomed by the university and that they cared about the individual as an asset. The university provides health and social care support that make us feel that we are more valuable than mere students, they send a positive message that they care about us as future investments by providing support services to ensure the welfare and wellbeing of every single student.

Saying that however, we feel that despite the good range of health and social care sessions, from drug awareness to sexual health advice, some improvements need to be made. We feel that these sessions are not advertised enough, ask any student and they will not be able to tell you when or where the sessions are run. Further, many will feel too embarrassed or intimidated to go, despite some positive promotion by the university. Arguably many students feel uncomfortable discussing these sensitive issues with anyone, and this is exacerbated by staff that seem to be unconcerned and when the first blunt question is about Chlamydia!

On the other hand, some services such as the chaplaincy have proven themselves to be a god’s send (excuse the pun!). It is of great comfort to know that these services are there for you whenever you need them, and that the support they provide is confident and will be provided with genuine care towards your wellbeing as an individual. Although the doctor’s could be improved to have a link up with the local surgeries and the registration process seems needlessly long, they are quick to give out appointments at times that suit you.

In conclusion, the university does address health and social care issues with some success. These services could be improved to make them more accessible to students, however as a whole they are successful. Article by Leanne Earnshaw.