Trust Board 23 March 2011

Item 18 COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS UPDATE Director of Communications and Corporate Development

Recommendation The Board is asked to note the contents of the report.

Introduction Reports such as this one as presented to each Board meeting and are designed to incorporate the matters arising from recent meetings of the PPI Sub Committee, as well as to highlight other ongoing issues relating to the involvement of patients and the public, engaging local communities and some of the wider organisational communications issues.

Community The first meeting of the Stakeholder Advisory Group that Engagement and has been set up to support the Wyre Forest GP Involvement Commissioning Consortia took place at the end of January. Issues This Group elected patient representative Stella Baldwin to be Chair and attendees included senior representatives from the voluntary sector, the County and District Councils, LINk, Wyre Forest Community Housing Group and GP Practice Participation Groups. Terms of reference and a bi- monthly frequency of meetings were agreed at the first meeting.

The GP Commissioning Consortia plan to work with the Group to raise stakeholder awareness of key issues and to provide an opportunity for stakeholders to feed in views and comments at a fairly senior level, as well as being in a position to advise about the most appropriate mechanisms to engage and involve the wider public in decisions and policy development. The NHS team have supported the development of the Group with a view to similar arrangements being set up in South Worcestershire and and Bromsgrove.

The new arrangements for delivering cancer services for Worcestershire patients do also provide opportunities to join up some of the patient involvement work. Developing cancer services have traditionally had good patient and public involvement, as was evidenced by the excellent response to the NHS Worcestershire consultation on the Cancer Strategy during 2010. Each of the three Community Engagement and Communications Update March 2011 Page 1 of 9 Cancer Networks have had their own arrangements to involve patients but there is now an opportunity to develop a single Worcestershire-wide group of interested parties that can be well placed to help to shape the new arrangements that will include local radiotherapy facilities and the selection of University Hospitals Coventry and as the main partner for Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. A new patient group is being setup and the first meeting is scheduled to take place in early March to discuss taking this forward.

One of the specific outcomes from the Health and Social Care Bill is the changes to the current arrangements for the Local Involvement Network (LINk) and the development of local Healthwatch organisations. It does appear that local Healthwatch will have more influence and a wider remit than the current LINk arrangements, not least of which in that a representative from Healthwatch will sit on the local Health and Wellbeing Board.

As with the LINk, the commissioning of appropriate support arrangements for the local Healthwatch organisations will be the responsibility of the County Council and Richard Harling will be leading on this. A group that includes patient representatives from across health and social care and people currently involved in LINk has been setup to talk through ideas to make the most of the opportunity to provide an effective and formal voice for patients.

Two Transforming Community Services engagement events have taken place since the last Board meeting. An event designed specifically for staff took place on Wednesday 26th January, and an event for both members of staff and external stakeholders took place on Wednesday 9th February. The events were held to allow interested individuals and parties to shape the both the visions and values as well as the quality accounts for the new Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust. Two more events are planned for later this month, and will be shaped by feedback we have received following the first two events.

The Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment has now been published, taking into account the feedback from the consultation. The Dementia Strategy Consultation has also closed and feedback is currently being reviewed. The final strategy will hopefully be launched end of April.

The Workforce Development project is drawing to a close at the end of March. The final piece of work was to create a ‘repository’ of information and templates to help staff conduct patient involvement work and act as a

Community Engagement and Communications Update March 2011 Page 2 of 9 resource across all 5 trusts involved in the project. This will be launched on the intranet in the next few weeks.

PPI Sub The next meeting of the PPI Sub Committee is scheduled Committee to take place on Tuesday 29th March 2011.

Items on the agenda include an update and discussion about the new clustering arrangements for Primary Care Trusts, a progress report on GP Commissioning Consortia and in particular their approach to patient involvement and an update on Transforming Community Services.

Media issues The latest analysis of media coverage across the NHS in the West Midlands has been produced by Kantar Precis on behalf of the Strategic Health Authority, extracts of which are included within this report as Appendix One. A particular area of concern that attracted negative comment in the Worcestershire media were the changes to the rehabilitation services that are currently provided at Aconbury but in general the analysis reflects the fact that Worcestershire benefits from some very balanced and fair local media coverage. Data from areas such as Birmingham, Stafford and Stoke-on-Trent illustrates a much higher proportion of negative comment about the local NHS, with Worcestershire – and the Worcester News in particular – evidenced as presenting a fairly balanced picture.

More recently and since the last Board meeting NHS and public sector finances have once again been a significant issue in the local media. The Acute Trust ‘back to basics’ initiative has generally been very well received but the announcement of their financial challenge of £23 million for the new financial year has understandable provoked comment and debate. This was followed up by a Parliamentary Adjournment Debate in the House of Commons on hospital services in Worcestershire that was secured by Karen Lumley, the MP for Redditch.

The recruitment of the Chair and Chief Executive for the newly named Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust was widely reported, with the Wyre Forest media in particular keen to reference Sarah Dugan’s previous role in the former Wyre Forest Primary Care Trust.

Nationally the Health Ombudsman’s report into complaints about the NHS provoked comment and discussion. There weren’t any cases in Worcestershire that were referred to in the Ombudsman’s report but the media coverage of this report in particular reinforced the importance of timely and effective responses to complaints

Community Engagement and Communications Update March 2011 Page 3 of 9 and comments across the system.

The announcement of the selection of the partner to deliver specialist cancer services to Worcestershire patients attracted significant coverage and this will continue in the coming months. The debate has already moved on to identifying whether the new radiotherapy facilities will be located at Redditch or Worcester, with both respective MPs getting involved in promoting the merits of their area and the Redditch MP in particular starting a local petition.

The Redditch MP Karen Lumley also commented publically about the good work that NHS Worcestershire’s Public Health team had done for National Obesity Fortnight that took place in January. This was referenced in another debate in the House of Commons and widely reported by the local media in Redditch.

Communications The latest phase of the ongoing marketing campaign to issues increase the take-up of NHS Dentistry places started in February. Once again the specific targeting of particular areas using the mobile ‘Advan’ and teams of promotional staff forms a major part of the plan. This is also being supported by new technology that enables messages to be sent automatically to mobile phones within a 30 metre radius of the mobile vehicle via Bluetooth. Activity over a week in Worcester City, Kidderminster and Malvern has identified over 2,000 leads of people who have indicated that they don’t have an NHS Dentist and would like an appointment.

Discussions are continuing with the emerging GP Commissioning Consortia about their specific communications needs. Wyre Forest and South Worcestershire have both started to produce a regular newsletter with support from the NHS Worcestershire team and websites are currently being developed for all three Consortia. Discussions are taking place with the Consortia to agree the design and functionality that will be required for each site, with a view to building on the work that has been done to develop areas of the NHS Worcestershire website such as secure login areas and online survey capability.

HRH The Princess Royal officially opened the new Malvern Community Hospital on Wednesday 23rd February 2011. Nearly a hundred stakeholders and invited guests attended the ceremony that also included a full tour of the hospital by the Royal party and an opportunity to meet numerous patients and people from the local community who have been involved in the project. Earlier

Community Engagement and Communications Update March 2011 Page 4 of 9 in the afternoon a plaque marking the contribution that campaigner Pat Merrick and the League of Friends made to the development of a Minor Injuries Unit in Malvern was also unveiled. The occasion received lots of positive broadcast and printed media coverage, with BBC Hereford and Worcester and the Malvern Gazette paying particular attention to the events.

As part of facilitating a move towards the new Trust, business unit leads from the Provider arm and the Mental Health Trust have been filmed discussing their respective units and giving an overview of what their service delivers. These clips are available via the intranet and are designed to help staff gain a better understanding of the different services the new Trust will deliver. The clips can be accessed at http://www.worcestershire.nhs.uk/your- services/worcestershire-health-and-care-nhs-trust.aspx.

The Long Service and Staff Achievement Awards 2010/11 took place on Wednesday 2 March at Worcester Rugby Club. Nearly 200 people attended and the ceremony was hosted by BBC Hereford and Worcester’s Breakfast Show presenter, Howard Bentham.

Freedom of The calendar year 2010 saw NHS Worcestershire receive Information a total of 333 Freedom of Information requests, an requests increase of 18% on the number received during 2009. Approximately 95% of these relate to the commissioning function and about one third are received from individuals with the rest coming from members of the press or commercial organisations seeking information.

Plans for 2011 include an expanded Publications Scheme that should mean that more of the standard information that is requested under the Freedom of Information legislation is available anyway on the NHS Worcestershire website and replies can just reference this without having to provide the detail.

Community Engagement and Communications Update March 2011 Page 5 of 9 Appendix one – extracts from media coverage analysis report for January 2011 and December 2010

Community Engagement and Communications Update March 2011 Page 6 of 9 Community Engagement and Communications Update March 2011 Page 7 of 9 Community Engagement and Communications Update March 2011 Page 8 of 9 CONTEXT AND IMPLICATIONS

Process This paper is an information item for noting and is a summary of activity across this area.

Review Terms of reference for the PPI Sub Committee will be reviewed annually.

Equality and Diversity The PPI Sub Committee will take equality and diversity implications implications into account when considering all of its activity.

Patient and Public The PPI Sub Committee has been setup to provide a involvement steering group to monitor engagement and involvement activity and includes representation from a broad range of community groups.

This report also seeks to provide information that outlines the significant patient and public involvement that is now taking place at many levels of this organisation.

Financial consequences None specific

Legal consequences None

Health inequalities None

Community Engagement and Communications Update March 2011 Page 9 of 9