Bee Counted- Health Inspectors

Bee Counted is an inspection process where young people inspect health services across Greater Manchester, with the aim of ensuring health services are responsive to the needs of young people by listening to their views and acting on them. This is based on the Greater Manchester Youth Agreement (2018), a set of expectations that young people have when utilising health services.

The reports that young people create through this process are shared with the services themselves, as well as being circulated through higher level structures such as senior health boards. This is to showcase the work of the inspectors and also ensure accountability for the recommendations offered by the group for the services involved.

Three of the inspectors were also invited to share their experiences at the Greater Manchester Children’s Board, where they spoke to local leaders and decision makers about their role as inspectors and what they have learned about in this process.

The influence of young people through this project is shown through the changes that services make as a result of the report and recommendations created by young people. One example of this is shown in the Royal Oldham Children’s Outpatient service; first inspected in March 2022 and reinspected in August 2023. From their first inspection, the service created their own action plan, detailing what they were doing to meet recommendations that the inspectors included in the March 2022 report. Staff were able to discuss this in their 2023 inspection, to show the impact of the inspection process and that their service had made progressive action to improve their service.

The influence of the inspections and the next steps taken by services as a result is also fed back to inspectors, helping to show them their influence. This feedback is also held for any future inspections with the service, and we ask about this in re-inspected services.

Young people feel empowered and motivated to make change to the world around them.

Intermediate Outcomes connected to the Youth Focus North West Theory of Change

Young people take on responsibility and show leadership

Young people enjoy their engagement with our programmes and develop

their personal and social skills / capabilities

Feedback from young people: 

'Being part of the Bee counted inspections was an amazing experience as it was an experience that not many other services could provide, it helped young people being able to give Health services written reports after being inspected which really helped me feel that my input was important. I really enjoyed doing the inspections themselves whether they were online or in person as everyone was really friendly, the Bee counted Inspections helped me grow even more confidence as at the start I was quiet and not sharing my ideas as much but as we did more inspections I was sharing more of my ideas’- Noor, Young Inspector

‘‘My experience being a young inspector was enjoyable. I heard about it through my youth council and shortly after joined. We started off by having an initial zoom session that prepared us for the inspections and then after that we could sign up for whatever inspections we were interested in.

I found that the groups we inspected were interested in the feedback we gave them and wanted to improve their facilities for young people. Some places that I inspected had not even considered issues affecting young people, such as accessibility and privacy. Thus, it was a fantastic opportunity to help young people in Manchester by helping services become more young people-friendly.

As a young person myself, I could make recommendations based on my experience and suggested creating a youth participation board and developing a more prominent social media presence. Being a young inspector taught me to be more aware of the world around me and the work that goes into creating welcoming spaces for young people.’ Virginia, Young Inspector

One of the young inspectors wrote a blog about her experiences of being a young inspector, and the influence of this process on her future career path. You can read it here.