The Official Newsletter of the Mid Wales Joint Committee for Health and Care Welcome…
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Spring 2019 Mid Wales Matters The official newsletter of the Mid Wales Joint Committee for Health and Care Welcome… In this edition you will find an update on our work over the past 3 months as well as lots of useful and important information about what is going on in your area. In January we held a Mid Wales Joint Committee meeting, kindly hosted by Gwynedd Council in their area offices in Dolgellau. Updates were received detailing the ongoing work, which is explained further on in this newsletter as well as news of a new lead Chief Executive for the Joint Committee and plans for an All Wales Rural Alliance. 1 Joint Committee Groups The sub-groups of the Joint Committee are now up and running and these are known as the Planning and Delivery Executive Group, Clinical Advisory Group and Public and Patient Engagement and Involvement Forum. Planning and Delivery Executive Group The Mid Wales Planning and Delivery Executive Group chaired by Carol Shillabeer, Lead Chief Executive for the Joint Committee, met on 13th December 2018. Representatives from Health Boards and Local Authorities were in attendance to discuss the development of the Mid Wales Ophthalmology Plan. Following detailed discussions it was agreed that this work be split into phases. The first phase is focusing on Mid Wales Community Primary Care Ophthalmology services for which two workshops have been held. These two workshops have brought colleagues together to share the current position, discuss how a Mid Wales approach could improve services and start the work on developing a draft plan for a Mid Wales approach which will be presented to the next Joint Committee meeting. Clinical Advisory Group The Mid Wales Clinical Advisory Group chaired by Dr Wyn Parry, the Joint Committee Lead Clinical Director, has met on two occasions since the group was formed. Updates on the Mid Wales perspective were received from those members representing Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, Hywel Dda University Health Board, Powys Teaching Health Board, Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust and Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust. It was noted that each organisation covered a huge geographical area for which there were significant challenges. However, there were significant opportunities for developing services across Mid Wales and working across boundaries which could be influenced by the group. Key enablers include making more use of telemedicine and sharing of records for all aspects of care including social, primary and community services. Public and Patient Engagement and Involvement Forum A small group of Engagement and Involvement Leads for partner healthcare organisations, Local Authorities and Community Health Council representatives has been established, known as the Mid Wales Public and Patient Engagement and Involvement Steering Group. The main role of this group is to discuss and agree how best to engage and involve the public and patients in the work of the Joint Committee using existing organisational mechanisms. The first “people’s” event coincided with the Rural Health Conference held in November 2018. This was an information sharing and engagement event for people and frontline staff on the Joint Committee’s strategic intent and priorities, proposed patient success measures and an opportunity to feedback on any other areas of work which need to be considered in the long term. Although there was good attendance for the Rural Health and Care element of this event the numbers of public who attended the event was disappointingly low. As a result the Steering Group has considered the format of future events in order to better attract a public audience and ‘drop in’ events will be held in late Spring 2019 at local cafés at locations across Mid Wales for late afternoon / early evening. These events will showcase projects undertaken across Mid Wales which include patient experience and staff experience stories. Individual health and care organisations will also be offered the opportunity to use these events as vehicle for their own respective engagement and involvement activities. Also running alongside these events is a piece of work being undertaken to collate individual organisational engagement and involvement mechanisms in order to identify those opportunities where the Joint Committee can engage and involve the public and patients in its work. 2 Chair of Mid Wales Public and Patient Engagement and Involvement Forum A process of nomination has been held in order to find a Chair for the Mid Wales Public and Patient Engagement and Involvement Forum for the period from April 2019 to March 2020. Details of the new Chair will be released in due course. Next meeting of the Mid MWJC Leadership Roles Wales Joint Committee At our recent Joint Committee, Carol Shillabeer Our next meeting was due to be held on Monday 11th announced that she was stepping down as Lead March. Unfortunately due to the announcements of a Chief Executive after two years in post. Lead Chair, new Lead Chair and Chief Executive coming in to place Bernardine Rees, thanked Carol for all her hard work it has been decided to postpone this meeting. The on the Committee. The new Lead Chief Executive for meeting will now be held on Monday 15th April at 11am the next year has not yet been confirmed but will be in the Council Chamber, Ceredigion County Council, announced as soon as discussions have taken place. Penmorfa, Aberaeron, Ceredigion, SA46 0PA . Papers will be available to download from our website a We are saddened to share the news that Bernardine week prior to the meeting and a live webcast will also Rees, Lead Chair MWJC and Chair, Hywel Dda be available if you wish to watch the meeting as it University Health Board has announced her happens but can not retirement with immediate effect. We wish Bernie all attend in person. the best for the future and thank her for her Details of the leadership over the last few years. A replacement webcast will be Lead Chair will be announced in due course. published a week prior to the meeting. Rural Health and Care Wales Rural Health and Care Wales was established in response to the twelfth recommendation of the Mid Wales Healthcare Study that a centre be developed to focus on research, development and dissemination of evidence in health service research that addresses the particular challenges of Mid Wales. The second Rural Health and Care Wales Annual Conference was held in November 2018 for which the theme was “Improving the Health, Well-being and Care of Rural Populations”. The event was opened by Dr Chris Jones, Chair of Health Education and Improvement Wales, and chaired by Bernardine Rees, Mid Wales Joint Committee Lead Chair. The event was well attended by approximately 150 delegates and feedback received was overall very positive, with considerable interest in continuing to stage a rural conference in Mid Wales as an ongoing annual event. A presentation was received by the Mid Wales Joint Committee at its meeting on 14th January 2019 outlining the proposed future governance arrangements for Rural Health and Care Wales through the establishment of an All Wales Rural Alliance for which Rural Health and Care Wales would be a part of. Members supported the proposal to develop an All Wales Rural Alliance to be hosted by Powys Teaching Health Board and agreed that further work would be undertaken to develop this proposal. A paper will be presented at the next Joint Committee meeting. Rural Health and Care Wales continues to provide administrative support for the Green Health in Practice Network (Mid Wales) which has developed quality assurance frameworks for social / green prescribing 3 providers for which the public facing ‘tree’ is described in the illustration on the next page. Green Health in Mid Wales 4 Dyfi Valley Health Dyfi Valley Health, the provider of GP Primary Care Services for around 7,000 people in north west Powys and surrounding areas, is facing a number of challenges in maintaining local services in their current form. They have submitted a formal application to Powys Teaching Health Board to merge their services onto their Forge Road premises in Machynlleth and close their premises at Cemmaes Road by June 2019. In order to help PTHB consider the application from the practice and make decisions on the future of local services, they are consulting with patients of Dyfi Valley Health and the wider communities around Cemmaes Road and Machynlleth. Consultation is taking place from 11 February to 28 March 2019. Local patients and communities value their local services and a consultation document has been published which sets out the history, current situation and options for the future. This is being sent to patients registered with Dyfi Valley Health to seek their views, and is also being shared with local organisations and stakeholders. The consultation document can be found at this link: http://www.powysthb.wales.nhs.uk/sitesplus/documents/1145/broddyfivalley-dogfendocument-EN-Web.pdf Your views are essential to this process. PTHB need to understand how any change would affect you and your community and what steps they could take to reduce any negative impact of any change. We encourage you to express your views by completing and returning the consultation questionnaire: Consultation Questionnaire: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/broddyfivalley/ You don’t need to give your name and any feedback or comments will be entirely confidential. PTHB plan to hold a number of public meetings and drop in sessions where you can talk to the health board and other members of the community about this consultation. To find details of these event please see the PTHB website. The questionnaire will be analysed by the health board’s engagement team. Responses may also be shared with the Powys Community Health Council who are the independent statutory body to represent the interests of patients and the public in the NHS.