HEALTHWATCH SHEFFIELD ADVISORY BOARD MEETING
Wednesday 19 November 2014, 10.00 am – 12.00 pm
The Circle, 33 Rockingham Lane, Sheffield S1 4FW
______
Present:
Pam Enderby, Chair, Healthwatch Sheffield
Sue White, CEO, Voluntary Action Sheffield
Susan Kirkman, Board member
Pippa Hedley-Takhar, Board member
Maggie Campbell, Board member
Helen Rowe, Board member
Tony Blackbourn, Board member (Health Champion)
Hazel Blackbourn, Board member (Health Champion)
Vicky Cooper, Information & Evidence Coordinator, Healthwatch Sheffield
Carrie McKenzie, Policy & Engagement Co-ordinator, Healthwatch Sheffield
Myrtle Pritchard, Administrator, Healthwatch Sheffield
In attendance:
Nicola Smith (Voluntary Action Sheffield, Board member)
10 members of the public (list of members of the public attending is held by Healthwatch Sheffield (HWS)
Chair:Pam Enderby (Chair, Healthwatch Sheffield)
Minutes: Myrtle Pritchard, Administrator Healthwatch Sheffield
Distribution: Healthwatch Board members, Core Team, Healthwatch Website
Who/When
1.1 / Apologies were received from the following board members: Eleni Chambers, Anne Hutchinson and Nighat Khan.
1.2 / Pam welcomed everyone to the board meeting. No written questions had been submitted but there would be time at the end of the agenda for questions from the floor.
1.3 / Pam outlined some changes that would be taking place on the board. From January 2015, Susan Kirkman and Helen Rowe will become Vice Chairs, replacing Tony Whiting who has stepped down from the board. Also, Maggie Campbell would be taking over the role of Chair from Pam at Christmas. Pam will continue as a board member until March 2015.
2.0 / MINUTES OF MEETING, 23 SEPTEMBER 2014 & MATTERS ARISING
2.1 / The minutes were agreed as a true record of the meeting
Outstanding actions:
Item 2.2 Question 2 (Ian Wallace) - If I buy shoddy goods in any market place, I can take them back and get my money back, don’t I? Why doesn’t this rule apply to ‘home care’? Who, locally, is responsible for quality control?
Answer
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspect providers of care. AdditionallyHWS keeps review the results of all inspections relevant to Sheffield. The lead for quality for care at home in Sheffield City Council is Louise Pigott. HWS will contact Louise and ask for her view on the question.
Sheffield City Council has been contacted and they are in the process of drafting a response which will be fed back to Mr Wallace via Healthwatch Sheffield (HWS).
/ HWS Core Team & Sheffield City Council
3.0 / DECLARATION OF CONFLICTS OF INTERESTS
3.1 / No conflicts of interest were declared.
Healthwatch England has issued information to local Healthwatches about the forthcoming General Election. Healthwatch need to be mindful of not having a political stance with regard to the use of local Healthwatch information.
4.0 / UPDATE FROM HEALTHWATCH CORE TEAM – ACTIVITIES
4.1 / The HWS Core Team reported on activities over the last 2 months:
There have been attendancesat several local conferences and engagement activities with the Healthwatch Information stall, eg Integrated Sexual Health Service and Sheffield City Council Quality Live event on the Care Act. There have also been consultations and discussion forums plus presentations to local health groups eg Diabetes group and Sheffield Cubed by the Core Team. More detail on activities can be found in the accompanying paper.
4.2 / HWS has 4 new volunteer community reviewers who will be working on Patient Transport until the new year. Training sessions have taken place for 18 Enter & View volunteers (including volunteers from Healthwatch Barnsley). No official Enter & View visits have taken place yet but HWS is working with the Pharmaceutical Committee to
arrange some visits before the end of December. It is also envisaged that mock Enter and View visits to hospitals will take place early in the new year.
Pam also reported that Wicker Pharmacy had been the first pharmacy in the country to be rated as excellent by the General Pharmaceutical Council, which was good news for Sheffield.
4.3 / HWS has also been working with other organisations opening up possible opportunities for new pieces of work eg Quality in Care Homes; and more work around the Care Act in the new year.
Healthwatch leaflets have been sent out to all GP surgeries, opticians and dentists in Sheffield. Pam asked people to let HWS know if they do not see a Healthwatch poster locality.
The NHS is producing a free booklet on health service providers for the general public which will be available at GP’s and hospitals in the new year. HWS will be included in the booklet.
Pam has been on Radio Imam talking about HWS and there are more radio opportunities in the pipeline.
/ All
4.4 / Carrie explained the enquiries process and reported that since the last meeting there had been 38 enquiries from the public; 8 of these had been referred to Voiceability (NHS complaints advocacy) service.
Carrie also added that HWS meeting representatives who attend around 20 meetings on behalf of HWS would be providing updates on meetings they had attended at future board meetings.
4.5 / Carrie provided an update on the 3 priority work areas (paper provided):
a) Adult Social Care & Care Act – This is the biggest single issue people are contacting HWS about at the moment. HWS held an event in September in partnership with Disability Sheffield. A report on the feedback will be published before the next board meeting.This will remain on the HWS work plan until the January board meeting.
b) Child to Adult Transitions – still in the early stages, although HWS is working with Young Healthwatch and have a meeting representative on a transitions working group.
c) Patient Transport- 4volunteer community reviewers will be conducting interviews at hospitals in early December. A report will be produced and submitted to the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) before the end of December.
Yorkshire Ambulance (YAS) hasoffered HWS a visit to the depot w/c 24 November 2014 and to participate in a ‘live’ visit in an ambulance.
4.6 / Pam asked whether anyone had any questions about the HWS activities reported.
Helen asked if she could be sent some information on the Patient Transport work and the visit with YAS. Vicky will send Helen some information as requested.
Nicola asked whether Patient Transport included forms of transport other than ambulances. Vicky said that it could also include taxis and other community transport.
/ HWS Core Team
5.0 / HEALTHWATCH PRIORITY ANALYSIS
5.1 / The new process for submitting work suggestions for HWS was outlined. Theaim is to make the decision-making process about the area of work HWS chooses to undertake more open and transparent. Members of the public can submit an issue they are concerned about which they want HWS to work on. A form is available on the HWS website or it can be posted. Completed forms should be emailed/posted to the HWS team. Each work issue submitted will be scored by the board.
Four topics were submitted since the last meeting: (2 from members of the public and 2 of the most common issues from the HWS enquiries database). Scoring was out of 20.
a) Life expectancy for people with Learning Disabilities (LD) – score 13. Recommendation: add to HWS workplan for January – March 2015 and work with HWS LD lead to draw up a project plan.
b) Adult Social Care/Implementation of the Care Act – score 15. Recommendation: that this work is added to the work plan. Urgent action as this is impacting on people lives. It was also noted that this work will take priority over other work if necessary.
c) Podiatry provision for people with Diabetes – score 8.5. Recommendation: raise this issue with other appropriate organisation in the city who are better placed to undertake this area of work. As a follow up HWS will contact providers to see if there has been a reduction in the service and feedback information to the board meeting.
d) Access to GP’s (Enter & View Project) – score 13. Recommendation: the project is added to the work plan for January – March 2015. Will probably involve joint working with Healthwatch colleagues in Barnsley and Rotherham with the possibility of regional visits to GP’s.
Pam asked if there were any questions about the work areas. Maggie thought some of the work areas selected might be very time consuming when HWS had limited resources. She also voiced concern about the Access to GP’s work and the use of the Enter & View process. Vicky added that she was happy to discuss the methodology for the GP work with Maggie.
/ HWS Core Team
Maggie & HWS Core Team
5.2 / A member of the public said they were concerned that with the General Election coming up that any data from organisations like HWS might be used by political parties, culminating in HWS being criticised for anti-government propaganda. Pam acknowledged that this might be a possibility and that HWS should be mindful that it is politically neutral.
A question was asked about the extra information provided verbally than was on the scoring forms. Susan replied that she had given some extra information not known to other board members and Maggie added that there was also a constraint on time and on the amount of information that can be supplied. Maggie said that there was still work to do to produce project plans, which would be posted on the HWS website to keep people informed of the selected work areas.
A question was asked about the attitude of practice managers at some GP surgeries. Sue added that HWS was beginning some work involving practice managers, which would be looking at good practice around the city. Carrie added that following the board meeting there would be a discussion forum on Primary Care, which included a presentation from a local practice manager. / HWS Board
6.0 / YOUNG HEALTHWATCH – UPDATE
6.1 / Chilypep (Children’s Empowerment Project) have been commissioned to run Young Healthwatch from July 2014 – March 2015 (not Sept 2015 as stated in the paper circulated) A rep from Young Healthwatch will attend future board meetings to give updates on their activities.
Over the summer Young Healthwatch have attended various events eg CCG, Health & Wellbeing Board, university volunteering fairs. They held their first meeting on 7 October which was attended by 18 young people; 75% from black and minority ethnic groups. At the recent meeting they looked at the Health & Wellbeing Strategy and undertook some planning and prioritising work. The meetings will be held on a monthly basis. Carrie introduced Stacey Hanson who is a member of Young Healthwatch.
6.2 / Maggie commented that she had attended the Health & Wellbeing Board mental health engagement event along with Young Healthwatch and felt the event had been excellent. She felt encouraged that 10 of the young people there would be part of the future Young Healthwatch Board.
Carrie added that Young Healthwatch had set up a Facebook page and Twitter account which had been designed in partnership with the HWS Core Team.
7.0 / BOARD MEMBERS BRIEF UPDATE (paper)
7.1 / Carers– There are concerns about the Independent Living Fund (ILF) which finishes in June 2015. Sheffield City Council has not said how this will be replaced. Around 300 people in the city are affected.
Carers respite services are changing and may be going out to tender. Also, assessments are taking too long and putting carers under stress.
7.2 / Learning Disability Partnership Board (20 Oct 2014) – Main item was the Joint Health & Social Care Learning Disability Self- Assessment Framework, which measures how learning disability services perform.
There was also the issue of people’s budgets being reduced under the ‘Fairer Costing’ approach, which is affecting how much money people have to spend on basic recreational activities.
7.3 / Children’s Health & Wellbeing Board, 5 Nov 2014 (CHWBB) – Sheffield will be signing up to the Disabled Children’s Charter and reviewing the city’s performance against the charters commitments. Regarding child to adult transitions – there was concern that there was no central lead on transitions in Sheffield.
/ HWS Core Team
7.5 / Physical, sensory, cognitive impairment (Hazel Blackbourn) – Partners for Inclusion (PfI) held a Care Act event, 12 Nov 2014. Key points raised were the state of readiness of the Council prior
to the implementation of the Care Act. Alsoraised were PfI’sissues around funding and the lack of a relationship with Sheffield City Council.
8.0 / CCG ENGAGEMENT SUMMIT(paper)
8.1 / Meeting between the main NHS health and care organisations in Sheffield, 3 September 2014 to discuss patient, carer and public engagement. The aim was to bring everyone together to look at sharing work and make resources go further.
Organisations had agreed that it was sometimes confusing for the public about who to contact for particular issues and that there was overlap of data collection and methods of communication which added to the confusion. There was agreement about joint working and developing plans and strategies to work together which would also involve the general public. The next steps would involve working with voluntary, community and faith organisations outside the NHS family. The next meeting is scheduled for January 2015.
9.0 / ANY OTHER BUSINESS
There was no further business.
10.0 / QUESTIONS FROM THE PUBLIC
10.1 / No written questions were submitted for the board. Questions were taken from the floor.
10.2 / A question was asked about the Expert Patient Programme and that the information being given out was confusing. Hazel replied that the programme was now finished. Efforts had been made to obtain further funding but this had been unsuccessful. So, it must be assumed that it would not be continuing.
11.0 / DATE OF NEXT MEETING
11.1 / Monday 26 January 2015, 1.30 pm – 3.00 pm, Conference Room 1, The Circle, 33 Rockingham Lane, Sheffield S1 4FW (Discussion Forum 3.30 pm – 5.00 pm, Topic tbc)
Minutes checked and signed by Chair, Pam Enderby:
ACTIONS FROM HEALTHWATCH SHEFFIELD ADVISORY BOARD MEETING
19 NOVEMBER 2014
/ WHO / BY WHEN
2.1 / Outstanding action from Item 2.2 Question 2 (23 September 2014 board meeting)
Sheffield City council has been contacted and they are in the process of drafting a response which will be fed back to Mr Wallace via Healthwatch Sheffield. / HWS Team / Before the next meeting
4.3 / Healthwatch leaflets have been sent out to all GP, dentist and opticians in Sheffield. Board attendees were asked to let HWS know if the do not see a leaflet/poster in their locality. / All / Ongoing
4.6 / Helen to be sent information on the Patient Transport Work and the visit with Yorkshire Ambulance Service.
/ Vicky Cooper, HWS Team / By w/c 24 Nov
5.1 / Podiatry provision for people with Diabetes –HWS to raise the issue with the appropriate organisation in Sheffield and follow up to see if there has been a reduction in the service. Information to be fed back to the board. / HWS Team / When the information become available
5.1 / Access to GP’s (Enter & View project) – Vicky to discuss the methodology for the project with Maggie Campbell
/ Vicky Cooper & Maggie Campbell / Before the next meeting
5.2 / Project outlines to be posted onto the HWS website to keep people up to date on the selected work areas. / HWS Team / Before the next meeting
HWS Board meeting - 19 Nov 2014 ITEM 4
update from healthwatch core team – Activities
Background
The Healthwatch Core team is responsible for the delivery of the Healthwatch strategy and day to day management of the programme.
Raising awareness -
Attendance at the following events;
- Integrated Sexual Health Service - 80 delegates attended - 10 new organisations sign up to mailing list and the Virtual Advisory Network (VAN)
- Sheffield City Council’s Budget meeting - 100 leaflets were distributed
- Meeting with Sheffield Foyer, a charity which provides housing for vulnerable young people between the ages of 16 – 25, we hope to visit again with Young Healthwatch.
- Clinical Commissioning Group Engagement Week – talk to staff members (20/25)
- Sheffield City Council Quality Live event - The event focused on the Care Act, Info & Advice, Social Care Accounts Service, Complaints, What our customers tell us. Estimated reach through leaflets 60 – 70 people.
We have also launched the Healthwatch Sheffield Strategic Partners Programme. We have our first strategic partner signed up – Disability Sheffield.
engagement
Engagement refers to engagement events, consultations and discussion forums held/attended by Healthwatch Sheffield where we gather people’s views or feedback.
- Presentation to a local diabetes group, the group completed an “I want Healthwatch Sheffield to” form – due to their concerns with changes to the Podiatry service in the city.
- Stall with Voiceability at the Sheffield City Centre Inside Out festival - we spoke to more than 40 members of the public and signed up 4 as Healthwatch members.
- Presentation and discussion with 12 Sheffield Cubed, member organizations that host Health Champions. This session was held to find out how they can help us raise awareness and feed through the views of people they work with.
volunteers
- Community Researchers – a briefing session was held on Monday 10th November for 4 people who applied to become Healthwatch Community Researchers. All 4 have signed up and will be working on Patient Transport until the New Year.
- Meeting Representatives – All meeting representatives have been invited to an induction/briefing session on the 27th November 2014.
- Enter and View Authorised Representatives - we have ran training sessions for 18 volunteers. Session One – Introduction to Enter and View and Session Two – Introduction to Safeguarding, Equal Opportunities and Mental Capacity Act and Safeguarding. We hope to carry out Mock Enter and View visits in December 2014 working with St Luke’s Hospice and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.
improving and influencing services
- Quality in Care Homes: May be an opportunity for Healthwatch Sheffield to undertake a piece of work re consultations in Care Homes.
- Quality in Care at Home: May be an opportunity for Healthwatch Sheffield to undertake a piece of work re consultations in Care at Homes
- Healthwatch Sheffield now has representation on the Integrated Commissioning Programme Board which has been set up by Sheffield City Council and the Clinical Commissioning Group.
- The Care Act: Debrief session with Sheffield City Council and Disability Sheffield. We will do more work around Funding, Assessment and eligibility and Advocacy.
- Report for the Quality Surveillance Group. This report listed the number and type of enquiries we had for each of the local NHS/Care providers in the past 2 months.
- Attended the Sheffield Teaching Hospital Quality Report steering group
- Attendance at the sub regional Dental Professional Network on behalf of all the Healthwatches
research
- Met with the CQC at a national meeting with other local Healthwatch. We raised the issue of varying communication with Healthwatch and issues which arise when organising Enter and View at a location already under close CQC scrutiny.
- Analysed feedback following our Care Act event in September. Most people wanted to hear more practical examples of how the Care Act was likely to impact on their lives, and to understand more about finances, assessment and advocacy. We have taken this into account in our future planning on this topic.
- Pulled information from our database to use to inform the Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment, and the regional dental committee.
- Met with some board members to discuss Quality Accounts and the process for this year, began Quality Accounts process with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.
- Attended two meetings with Sheffield City Council on care at home and care homes. This included representation from Sheffield CCG and the CQC. Mapping was done to ascertain exactly what information is collected by whom, and gaps identified. SCC will be doing further work on this in future and we will be asked to contribute.
- Agreed with ScHARR (Sheffield University) to host one Masters Student on placement looking at secondary data analysis.
Marketing and communications
- Healthwatch information packs and leaflets have gone out to every GP’s, Opticians and Dentist surgery in the City. Should you be in any of these locally and don’t see a Healthwatch poster let them know and let us know!
- New flyers produced for Primary care event and the VAN
- 3 articles have also gone out to voluntary sector newsletters
- Half page Healthwatch advert in the CCG Guide to NHS services, which will be distributed across the city.
- Pam has been on Imam radio promoting Healthwatch
- Newsletter has been sent out to all GP Practices and to all Sheffield City Council elected members
enter and view update
- Enter and View volunteers will be visiting Healthy Living Pharmacies across the City to find out more about their work and what this means for patients.
- 4 training session have been held for the new cohort of Enter and View Authorised Representatives. These sessions were also attended by colleagues and volunteers from Voluntary Action Barnsley. Next step is the completion of Mock Enter and View visits.
enquiries from the public – referrals to voiceability
- Since the last Advisory Board meeting, 23 September to 10 November 2014 there have been 38enquiries to Healthwatch Sheffield and 8 referrals to Voiceability (NHS complaints Advocacy Service)
updates from meeting representatives
In future we will also provide updates from the meetings that meeting representatives attend on behalf of Healthwatch Sheffield. Meeting Representatives represent Healthwatch at specific meetings in order to provide a coherent voice for the views of people in Sheffield.