Healthwatch Brighton and Hove – Strategic Priorities 2016 – 2019
1. Healthwatch Brighton and Hove draft strategic priorities 2016 – 2019
The strategic priorities for Healthwatch Brighton and Hove for 2016 – 2019 will be:
✓To help increase consumer confidence in local services by ensuring that decision makers ‘keep their promises’; and to help the improvement and involvement of consumers in heath and care commissioning.
✓Provide evidence of consumer experiences of health and care services using our ‘enter and view’ statutory powers and other accredited methods. Over the next year this will focus on social care services but include service reviews in the NHS depending on available resources.
✓Provide evidence, to improve health and care services, from people with protected characteristics and seldom heard communities. This activity will also include children and young people, people with mental ill health and frail older people.
✓To help decision makers by providing timely evidence and information on topical health and care issues from the user and public perspective.
These priorities will be monitored, reviewed and revised on a regular basis by the HWB&H Board, at least every six months.
Healthwatch Brighton and Hove [HWB&H] is the local independent consumer ‘watchdog’ for health and social care. HWB&H isarelatively new organisation. It was established on 1stApril 2013 and wasregistered as a Community Interest Company of the 1/4/2015. Prior to this it wasa project within Brighton and Hove Community Works.HWB&H is commissioned by B&H Council but is independent of the Council and NHS.
Every local authority area in England has a local Healthwatch and there is a national Healthwatch England, that operates as part of the Care Quality Commission
It is normal for local Healthwatch to publish its priorities for a number of reasons:
✓Local Healthwatch should be communicating the views and experiences of local consumers to decision makers, and that should advise our strategic priorities, our broad focus, and our workplan, what we do day by day
✓Local Healthwatch should be influencing decision makers and we cannot do that on every long term issue and new topical issues unless we have priorities to give us focus
✓Local Healthwatch should be able to signpost and advise people about health and social care services, we need priorities to decide how to do that job effectively
✓Local Healthwatch focus on those whose voice is least heard and we need to demonstrate we are reaching these groups and individuals.
Local Healthwatch in Brighton and Hove has a small staff team of five staff most are part time, we also have a strong team of 30-40 volunteers, including our Board members. We need priorities to help us decide what we will do in our workplan and those things that we are not able to do.
2. Priorities for 2015 – 16
Our priorities last year are published on our web site :
Programme of rolling visits to GP practices
Programme of rolling visits to care homes
Increase number of other types of visits e.g. Sit and See Visits
Increase number of volunteers
Developing training opportunities for volunteers particularly those in the enter and view team
Capacity building – income/resources generated
Transgender mini project
Increase number of Helpline enquiries
Improving support to the Chair on the Health and Wellbeing Board
3. The Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy [JHWS] and the Clinical Commissioning Group’s [CCG] Strategic Priorities
The Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategic Plan is the overarching plan for Health and Social Care in the City the CCG’s Strategic Objectives are informed by that. The CCG is the body that purchases and commissions almost all of the healthcare in the City.
The Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy http://present.brighton-hove.gov.uk/Published/C00000826/M00004777/AI00035713/$20130910111742_004687_0018338_JHWSFINALEDIT020913_v1.doc.pdf priorities are based on an analysis of the Health and Wellbeing of people living in the City, the Joint Strategic Needs Analysis [JSNA]:
Cancer and Cancer Screening
Emotional Health and Wellbeing (including Mental Health)
Dementia
Healthy Weight and Good Nutrition
Smoking
A key objective is to reduce health inequalities in these areas and across all health and social care.
The CCG’s strategic priorities inform their 5 year plan http://present.brighton-hove.gov.uk/Published/C00000826/M00005106/AI00039509/$20140606145116_005946_0024115_Item7BrightonandHoveCCGCommissioningPlansFINAL.doc.pdf they are:
Align our commissioning to the health needs of our population and ensure we are addressing health inequalities across the City
Ensuring that citizens will be fully included in all aspects of service design and change, and that patients will be fully empowered in their own care
Increase capacity and capability in primary and community services so that we focus on preventative and proactive care – particularly for the most frail and disadvantaged communities
Plan services that deliver greater integration between health, social care and housing and promote the use of pooled budgets
Design high quality urgent care services that are responsive to patient needs and delivered in the most appropriate setting
Integrate physical and mental health services to improve outcomes and the health and wellbeing of all our population
Deliver a sustainable health system by ensuring our clinical care models, commissioning and procurement processes and internal business practices reflect the broader sustainability agenda and deliver on our duties under the Social Value Act
Exploit opportunities provided by technology to deliver truly integrated digital care records, derived from the GP Record as the primary source which will be made ‘Fit for caring, fit for sharing’ through a programme of information management and data quality initiative
4. What local people have told us
We have gathered people’s views in lots of ways:
Meeting people at public events
Holding surveys and questionnaires, in one survey we approach over 700 people to gather views about local GP services and personal attitudes to health and social care
Through our representative volunteers attending hundreds of committee meetings and events and providing us with systematic feedback
Through phone calls, emails, texts and tweets
Through our Health Complaints Advocacy Service
Through the local Council, CQC, CCG, hospitals, community services, mental health services and our partners
Prominent and topical concerns are:
Concerns about GP services
Concerns about local hospitals, particularly RSCH
Concerns about the way services are commissioned e.g. Patient Transport Services, Wellbeing and access to psychological therapies services and pro-active care. This includes joint commissioning between health and social care and the involvement of local people not just in what is commissioned but also influencing the way in which things are commissioned
Concerns about social care, particularly how dignity and compassion can be maintained in the face of financial pressures.
5. Improving our system for setting priorities
We have an established system for setting priorities we want to improve on that by:
Consulting the local voluntary and community sector in a systematic way
Introducing a ‘balanced scorecard’ approach to help us make the right choices
Involving our partners, staff and volunteers more closely in the priority setting process and in developing our work plan
Using and referencing national and local research on patient and user views and experiences
Whether HWBH is best placed to carry out the work and have the capacity to deliver
Whether we anticipate we can make an impact on the design, commissioning, delivery and monitoring of services
Over the summer 2016 we will:
Consult with the local voluntary and community sector and Spokes partners about our draft strategic priorities, and our future work programme
We will examine the possibility of co-producing with service users ;and partnership and collaborative approaches with community groups and neighbouring Healthwatches
Consult with our staff, volunteers and Board members
In autumn 2016 we will take the outcome of that work to a Community Works Voluntary sector conference.
Over summer and autumn 2016 we will publish our draft priorities on our web site invite the public to score their preferences for our strategic priorities and future work programme
In November 2016 the HWBH Board ratify the draft Strategic Priorities and workplan as amended through the consultation process
6. Work programme
Our work programme is the practical application of our strategic priorities and is reviewed every 18 months by the HWBH Board. Decisions about our work programme are influenced by:
Our contractual obligations to BHCC
What people tell us about local services
Advice from CQC and Healthwatch England
Impact and value for money – how can we make the most difference in a cost effective way
‘Doability’ – do we have the resources to deliver any particular piece of work.
7. Rationale for draft priority setting 2016 – 2019
- We want to help increase confidence in local services by:
✓Making sure decision makers in health and social care ‘keep their promises’ we will do that using our representative volunteers
✓Exploring with the Council, CCG and NHS England how health and social care commissioning can be improved locally. We will do this through our representative volunteers, staff team and Board members
This fits with concerns local people have shared over the last year, the priorities in the JHWS and the CCG’s strategic priorities.
3. We want to help reduce health inequalities by listening to people with protected characteristics and communities seldom heard. We will do this through our Spokes Project working in partnership with representative organisations and community leaders.
4. We want to be flexible and relevant, able to respond quickly to topical issues as they arise. We will do this through public facing campaigns, being easy to reach and making better use of popular and social media.
David Liley
Chief Officer, Healthwatch Brighton and Hove
05/07/2016
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