December 2017 giving you advice gathering your views giving you a voice Giving you advice Healthwatch Wakefield Access Point Our Adviser is happy to support you with any health and social care advice or information you may need. Just contact them on 01924 234007 or drop in to the Access Point at Citizen’s Advice, 27 King Street, Wakefield WF1 2SR. Healthwatch Wakefield Office Healthwatch Wakefield staff and volunteers are based at our registered office: 11-13 Upper York Street, Wakefield WF1 3LQ. The number for staff and volunteers is 01924 787379. Young Healthwatch is based with Young Lives at Lightwaves Leisure & Community Centre, Marsh Way, Wakefield WF1 3LJ, their telephone number is 01924 364198. If words are bold and green it means you can click on them and the link will take you to more information. Healthwatch Wakefield Our office will close on Friday 22 December at lunchtime and reopen on Tuesday 2 January 2018 You can still send us a message on Facebook/HealthwatchWakefield or twitter @healthywakey Message from our Chief Executive Nichola Esmond Thank you to all our partners, volunteers, members of the public and everyone who has helped make this year so busy and interesting. We are really proud of the work Healthwatch Wakefield has done this year to highlight local people’s voices within health and social care. There is a lot to be done in 2018 too as services come under more pressure, so we’ll be here to listen to your stories and feedback, and continue to try and make a difference on your behalf. Healthwatch Wakefield Registered Company No. 09907848 and Charity No. 1166797 Tel 01924 234007 for advice, information & signposting Tel 01924 787379 for staff & volunteers [email protected] www.healthwatchwakefield.co.uk Update on some of our current work Compassion in Care Healthwatch Wakefield are leading a group of health and care providers and commissioners to look in more detail at compassion in care. This came about because Healthwatch noticed a sudden increase in stories that reflected a certain lack of compassion in how people were being treated across all care settings. The project aims to: 1. Raise the profile of compassion in care. 2. Find out why people sometimes behave with a lack of compassion. 3. Propose evidence based solutions to be implemented across the system. We will be putting together a survey for frontline staff in the New Year to ask about instances when they feel they’ve not been compassionate, why this might have happened and what might be done to prevent it happening again. We’ll also be asking for examples of when they feel they’ve been able to deliver truly compassionate care. We may also be planning an event some time in 2018 to promote compassion in care and perhaps put forward some ideas or solutions. Complaints across the system We know that people who have complaints that cover more than one health and care provider often find it really frustrating to navigate various complaints processes. We also know that providers find it difficult to respond to cross service complaints. In the New Year we’ll be working with complaints leads across the system to try and bring together joint responses to make things easier and more straightforward. From April 2018 we will be taking on the NHS Complaints Advocacy service and we would like to include more support around social care advocacy, so we hope to be well placed to support a more integrated response to cross service complaints. Vanguard evaluation Healthwatch Wakefield has been supporting our local Vanguards through patient and service user evaluation of key work streams. By March 2018 we will have worked with partners to evaluate primary care support of people with long term conditions, people’s experiences of discharge from hospital with a care package, pharmacy in general practice, holistic support offered to people in supported living settings and resident experience of care homes. Children’s Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Service: Parents and Carers Experience Following on from our two ASD reports this year, we have been asked to find out more information about parents and carers’ experience of being referred for, waiting for, and having an ASD assessment for their child. We will be working with partners to design a survey to go to all parents and carers on the waiting list or receiving ASD services early in the New Year, with quarterly follow up surveys to capture new referrals. There is currently a focus on improving services for children with ASD, more information on this is included in local news, and we hope this will be a good way of capturing people’s experiences. End of Life Care Project At the beginning of December we organised an event on behalf of the End of Life Care Project which was held at Wakefield Hospice. This meeting brought together people who shared experiences of end of life care for loved ones and friends. People also gave examples of good practice and where they thought services could be improved. It can be difficult to talk about, but is a very important thing to discuss and we are grateful to the people who came and shared their experiences. There will be another workshop in February/March, if you would like to take part or find out more about this work please contact us. Healthwatch Wakefield Registered Company No. 09907848 and Charity No. 1166797 Tel 01924 234007 for advice, information & signposting Tel 01924 787379 for staff & volunteers [email protected] www.healthwatchwakefield.co.uk Call for evidence Call to action Call for evidence Call to action Social Care We would like to hear more from you about any social care issues you might have. This can be to do with residential care or nursing homes; care services you receive in your own home; any help and support you might need, especially if you have not had or been given a social care assessment through Social Care Direct; equipment such as aids and adaptations or incontinence products; or clinical or medical waste collections. Let’s see how we can help you. National Speak Up Campaign The more that people share their ideas, experiences and concerns about NHS and social care the more services can understand where improvements are needed. That is why Healthwatch is running a campaign across England to encourage people to speak up and help to make services better for their communities. Thanks to people sharing their ideas and experiences with their local Healthwatch, services across England have made positive changes that benefit those who use them. But, to make a bigger difference, we need to hear from more people. Three ways you can help people #SpeakUp in 2018 1. Sign up to help raise awareness Sign up for our Thunderclap on 4 January 2018 and help encourage more people to share their views in 2018 to help make care better. 2. Create and download your own poster to promote Healthwatch https://www.healthwatch.co.uk/download-poster-promote-healthwatch 3. Share your experience If you've got an idea or an experience about health and social care services that you'd like to share, get in touch with us. Put words into action and volunteer with us! We have lots of different volunteering opportunities you may want to find out about such as visiting services to talk to patients, residents and staff; investigating a particular issue to find out information and suggest improvements; or research such as surveys with the public to find out their views. If you want to find out more, or have an idea about how you’d like to be involved, contact Safeen on 01924 787379 or email [email protected] Out and about Regular Healthwatch information and feedback stands now take place at different venues and group settings across the District providing you with an opportunity to talk to us about your experiences of local services. If you have any events that are taking place, or belong to groups that might want Healthwatch Wakefield to come and talk to them, please let Ann Marie know on 01924 787379 or email [email protected] Healthwatch Wakefield Registered Company No. 09907848 and Charity No. 1166797 Tel 01924 234007 for advice, information & signposting Tel 01924 787379 for staff & volunteers [email protected] www.healthwatchwakefield.co.uk Young Healthwatch Young Healthwatch has been busy talking to young people on the autism spectrum and their families, carers and support workers. They continue to work on children and young people’s mental health issues and they’ve also been talking to Rhubarb Radio whilst visiting Wakefield College to talk to students there. If you want to find out more about Young Healthwatch contact them at Young Lives Consortium, telephone number 01924 364198 or email [email protected] or [email protected] Healthwatch Wakefield Review 2016-17 If you haven’t already seen it, our Healthwatch Wakefield Review 2017 can be found on our website here, if you would rather have a printed copy let us know and we will post one to you. It includes information about how we work and what we’ve done over the last year and our plans going forward. Healthwatch Wakefield Question Time Event Thank you to everyone who came to our Question Time event in November. The questions and issues you raised were excellent and we have pursued some of the themes and concerns with local commissioners and providers. Thank you also to our panel (L-R): Andrew Balchin, Corporate Director Adults, Health & Communities Wakefield Council Dr Phil Earnshaw, Chair NHS Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group Nichola Esmond, Chief Executive Officer Healthwatch Wakefield Richard Sloan, Chair of Healthwatch Wakefield Dr Andrew Furber, Director of Public Health Jules Preston MBE, Chair Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust Rob Webster, Chief Executive of South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) Lead for West Yorkshire and Harrogate.