The Get Involved Group (GIG) Monthly Round-Up September 2019 The Get Involved Group is a user-led group which aims to ensure disabled peoples’ voices are heard when services are planned and changed. We identify issues and plan the solutions. Our next GIG meet-up is: TOPIC: Diversity in Care Needs - from home care, direct payments and supported living to residential and nursing care WHERE: Friend’s Meeting House, Ship Street, Brighton, BN1 1AF WHEN: Thursday 3 October, 2pm – 4:30pm As you know, the Get Involved Group carries out engagement work with disabled adults, adults with long-term health conditions, carers, friends and family and other service providers. The engagement project this autumn is to gather as much information as we can about the diverse care needs across the city, focusing on adults under 70 with physical and neurological impairments. The information will be fed into the council’s Needs Assessment, so this is a great opportunity to have your say. We also hope to have a guest speaker – to be announced! We’ll have our usual 30 minutes break in the middle, a good chance to catch up, and share information. Meetings are open to all disabled people in the city, whether or not you've been a part of the Get Involved Group before. Friends, family, carers and PAs are also welcome! Please let us know if you can make it – we’d love to see you there! Email [email protected] Call 01273 20 89 34 or 07394 56 55 03! More information to follow at www.facebook.com/groups/PossabilityPeopleGIG And if anyone would like to suggest a new topic for us all to explore please get in touch at [email protected] . 1 BSUH NHS Trust Patient / Service User Disability Group Meeting BSUH NHS Trust Patient / Service User Disability Group brings together hospital workers, disabled people and relevant groups and services to address practical issues disabled people face when accessing hospitals within the BSUH NHS Trust. WHEN: Wednesday 4 September, 2pm – 4pm WHERE: Possability Place, 14 Windlesham Avenue, Brighton, BN1 3AH Do you have feedback you’d like to share about issues you’ve faced when using hospital services? If so, please come along and have your say and help improve access for everyone. This is a really exciting time to be involved, with the ongoing development of the new hospital a regular topic. We would love you to come along and join in the discussion! You get in touch any time by emailing [email protected] or phone 01273 20 89 34 or text 07394 56 55 03. GIG and Possability People News/Updates Summer Social and a Warm Welcome to Linn, our new Project Lead! For the summer social we met up with the Healthy Lifestyles team, joining them on one of their Healthwalk - Sessions for Disabled People (SDP), around the beautiful haven for nature, St Ann’s Well Gardens. There were 25 of us in total, including the Healthwalks team and volunteers, a group from Grace Eyre, and some regular walkers. Shanni our cheery guide, greeted us at the garden café and made everyone feel very welcome. We strolled round the sensory garden, with the tick list Shanni provided, sniffing out lavender, mint and lemon verbena. We followed this with a walk up to the well-maintained pond, full of small fish, one rather suspicious looking seagull and at least a dozen shimmering dragonfly. It was a beautiful sunny day to enjoy the peace and natural beauty the park provides. It was also really enjoyable to share the morning with the Healthy Lifestyles team, regular walkers and the group from Grace Eyre. We retired to the garden café for refreshments and a chance to chat with old friends and new, and to sample some of the delicious cakes the café has on offer. Thank you to those that could make it. To view the Healthy Lifestyles programme click this link: http://bit.ly/2Zl0ZSM Healthy Lifestyles Team info: http://bit.ly/2NBQvHB E: [email protected] Enjoying St Ann's Well Gardens T: 01273 294589 2 Keep Connected, Young Adults Group Needs You! Keep Connected, GIG’s user-led social group for young disabled adults, is back! GIG volunteer Victoria will be heading up this user-led group and she’d love to meet you. Our scheduled meet up on 12 September 2019 has been postponed. New date to follow. Anyone for pizza? We would really like some new members or hear from members of the group that have attended before. We’d also be keen to hear from anyone interested in volunteering to support the running of the group. Interested? Please get in touch below, we’d love to hear from you. If you want to be added to the mailing list for the Keep Connected group please email [email protected], call 01273 208 934 or text 07394 56 55 03. The Brighton Legal Walk – want to help us fundraise? WHEN: Tuesday 10 September, 5:30pm WHERE: Starting at Brighton Magistrates Court, Edward Street, Brighton, BN2 0LG ACCESS: If want to join us, but have less mobility, we can bring along a wheelchair or scooter for you, free of charge. Just let us know. This is a 10km walk which begins at the Magistrates Court and out along the flat seafront, turning back to finish in Hove Town Hall (via the scenic route!). The walk is led by judges from the Civil Courts in Sussex. Over £4,400 was raised in 2018, with beneficiaries including Citizens Advice Brighton & Hove, Brighton Housing Trust, Possability People and Money Advice Plus. What can you do? Take part and join our team Sponsor the team Ask friends and families for sponsorship by clicking and sharing this link to your contacts and on your social media For more info email [email protected]. Fundraising link: https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/PossabilityPeople 3 Friends of the Get Involved Group Epilepsy Action coffee and chat Living in the Brighton and Hove area? Want to meet other people living with epilepsy in a relaxed setting? Epilepsy Action’s coffee and chat group meets on the last Thursday of the month at Brighthelm Cafe, North Road, Brighton, BN1 1YD from 11am-12.30pm. It's open to anyone living with epilepsy, their partners, parents or carers. The next meeting is on Thursday 29 September. A new evening group, also open to everyone, will be starting in September. The group will normally meet at the Alcampo Lounge 84-86 London Road, Brighton BN1 4JF, on the second Tuesday of each month between 6-8pm. They will also be going out to a range of social activities, including bowling, museums and local events. The first meeting will be on Tuesday 10 September at the Alcampo Lounge. Other meetings may be at other venues, so please contact Keirse for venue details before attending for the first time. Both venues are fully accessible. Find out more by phoning Madeline on 01273 508 620 or Keirse on 07546 736 045 or visit https://www.epilepsy.org.uk The Autism League The Autism League is a support and empowerment network for anyone with autism. It was set up by Mark Blake, an autistic student at the University of Brighton. Mark works together with a like-minded team with autism to help autistic people live more independent lives. The League provides information to support autistic people to develop strategies to help with both personal life, such as emotion management, and student and professional life, such as studying, working in a team and effective ways to find a career path. Another aim is to provide a platform for creative expression and for enabling autistic people to share their thoughts and experiences. The Autism League also acts as a force for change, campaigning for political change. Their current campaign is to get autism recognised as a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equalities Act. Mark would love people to get involved! You can contact him at [email protected] or by visiting https://autismleague.com/ where you can find out more information. 4 Other News New NHS 111 service contract awarded in Sussex A new five-year contract to provide Sussex’s NHS 111 non-emergency telephone service has been awarded to the ambulance service. South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) will be the lead provider, working in partnership with healthcare company Integrated Care 24 (IC24). The contract, worth £18.1 million in 2020/21 and due to start in April 2020, includes being able to issue prescriptions. Patients will also have access to a wider range of health care professionals such as GPs, paramedics, nurses and pharmacists, who will be able to directly book people into urgent care appointments if needed. Health groups across Sussex, Kent and Medway have worked together to commission a 111 service that “meets patients’ needs on their first call, including a consultation with a doctor or nurse where it is needed”. The NHS said SECAmb and IC24 are working together to provide an enhanced NHS 111 and a service that is more integrated with 999 and existing out-of-hours care. They want to support both emergency and urgent primary care. Meanwhile both organisations will be developing their workforces and offering roles which span both emergency and urgent care services. The public should continue to call 999 for life-threatening emergencies that require an immediate response. However if a call to NHS 111 is assessed as being a medical emergency, the service can dispatch an ambulance directly and provide first aid advice to the caller until ambulance clinicians arrive without the need to transfer the call, or for the caller to repeat information.