Giving children and young people a healthcare voice
Date of release: 20 March 2025
Children and young people are being given an opportunity to shape healthcare services at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust (RWT) by helping to set up a Youth Forum.
A planning meeting with fun, food and freebies, is being held on Friday 4 April at the Way Youth Zone in School Street, Wolverhampton, from 6pm-8pm to get the idea off the ground. And the Trust’s Charity is supporting the new initiative.
Kirsty Lewis, Senior Matron for Acute Children’s Services at the Trust said: “We need to ensure children and young people’s voices are really embedded at all levels of care in our hospital and community services. I think we’ve got used to trying to think like a young person which is very different to putting a young person’s viewpoint and insight at the centre of how we offer and run our services.
“One example I can think of is that our young patients rely on parents, carers or relatives to bring them to their appointments, and we rely on them having parents, carers or relatives to do that. But what about those who don’t have that support network or those who would rather attend an appointment themselves? Wouldn’t it be better for us to make things easier by going to venues where the young patient can get to themselves, so they aren’t reliant on others?
“Another common assumption that can be made is around mealtimes. The default position seems to be all children like chicken nuggets – yet many have quite refined taste buds, and we should be much more in tune with their likes and dislikes.”
Kirsty said the planning meeting would also be open to parents, members of the Trust’s Learning Disabilities Team and others who support children and young people.
“We see this as an exciting move in the right direction and would like to build up our engagement so they are able to attend management meetings at the Trust – they should have a voice at that level.”
Amie Rogers, Fundraising and Lead Digital Engagement Officer for the RWT Charity, said teams were looking forward to meeting local children and young people and working with them to take on board their ideas and suggestions.
“We appreciate that being in hospital or having to regularly attend medical appointments has an impact and we want to better understand how we can collectively make a difference to young people’s experience,” she said.
“The Charity is proud to support such a valuable initiative, and we look forward to working together with our communities in this way.”
The planning meeting is open to young people aged 11-19 and there will be guest speakers and a raffle.
