Letters to Mps and Ccgs from Users, Carers and Members of the Public

Letters to MPs and CCGs from Users, Carers and members of the public

Within this document are the wordings of two letters that you can use to send to your CCGs or MPs to encourage support for the Charter.

ASKS:

Write to your local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), who have responsibility for wheelchair service provision, to raise your concerns about wheelchair services and to press for improvement. A sample CCG Letter template can be easily accessed here to get you started.
Discuss wheelchair services at every CCG governing body meeting comparing them against the service specification; involve users and carers.
Seek out your local wheelchair service provider and talk with them about how, together, you can meet the ambitions of the Wheelchair Charter principles.
Involve users and carers in all wheelchair service redesign projects.
When tendering for wheelchair services base the tendering exercise on the provider’s ability to deliver against the charter principles.
Obtain the wheelchair service dataset from your providers and use it to inform improvement conversations at contract meetings.
Write to your local MP to raise your concerns about wheelchair services and to press for inclusion of Wheelchair Service improvement within the NHS Mandate. A sample MP Letter template and list of MP’s can be easily accessed here to get you started
Include NHS Wheelchair Services in the NHS mandate by 2017/18
MPs - Write to your constituency Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to ask what they are doing to deliver against the Wheelchair Charter principles. To get you started please access a briefing paper here.

Guidance Notes:

The letters may be created a single documents and then edited as necessary to suit the individual or organisation who is sending them:

Finding your CCG:

It is possible to find your own CCG by searching on-line using the link below. Simply enter you post code or town in the search box provided and relevant details will be shown. If more than one CCG is shown in the resulting search, select the CCG which is more appropriate to yourself or your organisation.

If you are an organisation based in a specific Local Authority, you may have more than one CCG that covers your area, therefore you may wish to write to more than one.

Finding your MP:

All of the current Parliamentary MPS are listed on the UK Parliament website. Using the link below you can search by town, constituency or by MPs name to obtain their contact details.

<Enter your Name or Organisations Name>

Address Line 1

<Date>

FOA: The Accountable Officer

RE: Right Chair Right Time Right Now: Wheelchair Charter

Dear <Name of Accountable Officer> / Sir or Madam (Delete or Amend as required)

For too long the Commissioning of Wheelchair Services has been considered to be a burden on the purse of local health services and local authorities, in some cases very little attention has been given to this important equipment provision and it has been left to deliver, in some areas, a very inadequate service. The quality of services across the country is mixed depending upon the priorities given to local needs. This has produced outcomes for patients who have often had to endure delayed delivery of wheelchairs, ill-fitting seating which results in hospital admissions due to pressure sores, inability to manoeuvre in their own home or propel their own chair effectively even with the assistance of a Carer. A lot of this is explained in an e-Digest produced by NHS IQ at the request of NHS England in preparation for the second Wheelchair Summit in November 2014. Here is a link to it:

You can see from this e-digest that much needs to be done to improve wheelchair services and as a result Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson established the Wheelchair Leadership Alliance which over the last six months have design a Wheelchair Charter which was launched on 20th July. More details about the Alliance and the Charter can be found on the Alliance website.

<You may wish to enter your own personal statement here>

As a result of all of this overwhelming evidence I/We would urge <Name of your CCG> to consider the following actions to ensure that the wheelchair service in our area really does meet the objectives of the Charter.

Ensure that the provision of wheelchair servicesis discussed at each relevant CCG governing body meeting and at the local Heath and Well Being Board to determine if you are meeting the Charter expectations with your own service specifications.
Where you identify that improvements are needed engage with your service users and carers to ensure that you agree what the service improvements can be achieved and implement those improvements together with all of your local wheelchair service stakeholders.
Discuss the Charter with your local wheelchair service provider and talk with them about how, together, you can meet the ambitions of the Wheelchair Charter principles.
When tendering for wheelchair services base the tendering exercise on each provider’s ability to deliver against the charter principles.
Obtain the wheelchair service dataset from your providers and use it to inform improvement conversations at contract meetings.

Most importantly I/We would like to urge you as a commissioning body to not only pledge your support for the Charter but also to sign up to it and deliver on it’s objectives.

You can sign up to the charter by going to and clicking on the “Pledge Support” button at the top of any of it’s pages. By signing up to the Charter this will provide clear recognition that you support the need to implement improvements nationally which will underpin the proposal to include it’s principles in the NHS England Mandate and enable everyone to put wheelchair provision on an equal footing to other mandated services.

I look forward to seeing wheelchair services improve in our areaas a result of your attention to the Charter and hope that with your support service users will have better outcomes in the future.

Yours Sincerely

Your Name>

<Enter your Name or Organisations Name>

<Date>

RE: Right Chair Right Time Right Now: Wheelchair Charter

Dear <Name of MP>

You can see from this e-digest that much needs to be done to improve wheelchair services and as a result Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson established the Wheelchair Leadership Alliance which over the last six months have designed a Wheelchair Charter which was launched on 20th July in the Speakers House. More details about the Alliance and the Charter can be found on the Alliance website.

<You may wish to enter your own personal statement here>

As a result of all of this overwhelming evidence, CCGs across England are being urged to sign up to the Charter and to meet it’s objectives. However I/We would urge you to acknowledge the work that has been achieved by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and the Wheelchair Alliance by Writing to your constituency Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) to ask what they are doing to deliver against the Wheelchair Charter principles. You may wish to access some of the briefing information posted on the alliance web site using the link above.

In addition I/We would appreciate your support for the Charter by signing upto it.

You can sign up to the charter by going to and clicking on the “Pledge Support” button at the top of one of the pages. By signing up to the Charter this will provide clear recognition that you support the need to implement improvements nationally which will underpin the proposal to include it’s principles in the NHS England Mandate by 2017/18 and enable everyone to put wheelchair provision on an equal footing as other mandated services.

Thank you for your attention and support

Yours Sincerely

Your Name>