Warwickshire North CCG Enc J Report to Governing Body: 28/11/2013 Communications and Engagement Report Title Dr Heather Gorringe Sponsoring Clinical Leader Cat Ainsworth - Communications and Engagement Author(s) Lead To update the Governing Body on communications Purpose and engagement activity from September - October Governing Body Previously considered by Executive summary This report provides an overview of communications and engagement activity undertaken by the NHS Arden Commissioning Support Communications and Engagement Team on behalf of NHS Warwickshire North Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) from September - October 2013. Patient and public involvement The Patient Group Forum met at the beginning of September at the GETEC building at George Eliot Hospital, where the group received a presentation on frail and elderly services from the SWFT community team. The Forum continues to enjoy good attendance and lively discussion with the number of GP surgeries being represented steadily increasing at each meeting to the extent that representation has now had to be limited to one representative per practice . An Issues Log has been developed with the Patient Group Forum, which will be used to record issues raised by patients and carers through different channels, including the Patient Group Forum, from voluntary and community groups and from individual patients or carers. This Log will enable us to accurately keep track of actions and to monitor emerging themes. The Issues Log will be reviewed at each Patient Group Forum meeting and the group will agree when actions are complete and issues should be closed To make it easier for patients and carers to give general feedback on their experience of health services, a patient feedback form has been developed. This is being made available in paper form, and will be made available on the website. This form has been designed to facilitate general feedback only and includes a clear statement that it is not intended to replace the complaints process, which should be used if individual circumstances are to be investigated. This feedback will then be incorporated into both the Issues Log and the quarterly Patient Feedback Report produced for the CQSG committee and will be triangulated with all other sources of feedback received. Our lay member, Karen Ashby, has continued with her visits to practices and Patient Participation Groups which has resulted in more practices supporting the Patient Forum by sending representatives to meetings including new representatives this month from Red Roofs Practice and Dr Ganapathi’s practice. The CCG was pleased to have a presence and runners for George Eliot’s first Fun Run in September. The event was well supported by those working for the local NHS and the wider community and was a good way to inform local people about the CCG and recruit health champions. An additional 37 new health champions registered on the day, bringing the total number of Health Champions recruited to date to 1550. We also spoke to local community groups and organisations including Age UK and Guideposts. Other events included the ‘Change for the better event’, organised by New Ideas Advocacy which works with people with learning disabilities in Warwickshire. This event provided the opportunity to speak with women with learning disabilities and their carers to gain feedback on healthcare services. Engagement with local BME groups remains a priority of WNCCG. Governing Body members visited the Sikh Mission Day Care Centre during October to meet with users of the centre and discuss healthcare issues and subsequent meetings are being arranged with Edward Street Day Care Centre and the African Caribbean Day Centre. The CCG also responded to an online post on Ask Warwickshire to explain the different ways that the organisation is working with and seeking views from the BME community. The PPI team visited the Bulkington Older People’s forum in October, and gathered feedback from the elderly. The team discussed services for the frail and those at the end of life with those attending the event. Healthwatch has launched its Good Engagement Charter and the CCG was pleased to attend the Healthwatch Good Engagement Event, held in partnership between Coventry Healthwatch and Warwickshire Healthwatch. The CCG has signed up to Healthwatch’s ‘Good Engagement Charter’ to demonstrate an ongoing commitment to working with local communities to shape patient centred services. The Charter was devised by Healthwatch organisations in Warwickshire and Coventry and sets out nine principles for engaging well with local communities. Principles include using a range of methods to gather feedback, making sure there is plenty of time to engage and ensuring that engagement is evaluated. Signing up to the Charter enables the CCG to evidence the principles that form the basis of patient involvement activities. The Charter can be accessed online at http://www.healthwatchwarwickshire.co.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/Good_Engageme nt_CharterWarwickshire.pdf Vision for Quality patient feedback event A public feedback event was held on 31 October at Bedworth Civic Hall. People who had previously taken part in engagement events and given their views on local health services were invited to attend. The CCG’s Clinical Leads explained how the Vision for Quality strategy aims to improve services in certain priority areas of: • Urgent and emergency care • Cardiovascular disease and stroke • Frailty • End of Life • Mental Health • Dementia. Those attending also heard from Jan Butterworth, representing the NHS England Area Team, who spoke about the national challenges and the NHS England Call to Action, putting local challenges and proposals into a national context. Feedback on the event 45 people representing patient groups and voluntary & community organisations attended the event and were asked to complete an event feedback form. 31 completed forms were received. The chart below shows how many respondents agreed or disagreed with eight statements as listed beneath each column. 31 October Vision for Quality event feedback 35 0 0 0 00 0 0 30 1 1 1 3 2 0 2 3 3 25 13 9 16 16 20 22 12 19 19 15 14 10 18 Strongly disagree Numberof responses 15 14 13 5 9 7 7 8 Disagree 0 Neither agree nor disagree Agree Strongly agree I foundtheevent useful did beforehand The event was the right length questions about the strategy The event has answeredmany ofmy I know where to furtherget information The venue was appropriate forthis event The presenters deliveredthematerial well I understandabout more the strategy thanI I foundthepresentations toeasy understand All respondents said that they found the event useful, found the presentations easy to understand and that they understood more about the strategy than they did before, either agreeing or strongly agreeing. Feedback on engagement Those attending the feedback event were also asked to give their feedback on how well they felt they had been involved during the development of the Vision for Quality strategy. The insight gained by this survey will help improve plans for future engagement activities. They were asked to complete a survey, asking “How well have we engaged with you in developing our clinical strategy?” The chart below shows how many respondents agreed or disagreed with six statements. The majority of respondents either ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that they felt involved and their views had been taken into account. However, a small number of people (5responses) either ‘disagreed’ or ‘neither agreed nor disagreed’ that they felt involved and that their views had been taken into account in response to these questions. All respondents ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ that they understood the purpose of the sessions they attended. When asked about being able to get involved in a variety of ways, whether the information they received was clear and concise, and whether they felt that the engagement facilitators were helpful and listened to what they had to say, the majority of people ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’. For each of these question, one respondent ‘neither agreed nor disagreed’, but this response was not given by the same respondent in each instance. Further plans for patient and public involvement in our Vision For Quality work are now underway with workshops being planned for early 2014 involving patients and carers who have had recent use of any of these services being involved in the further detailed development of our proposals. Media September We publicised the new phlebotomy clinics which have been set up to restore services for patients going for blood tests .The phlebotomy service in North Warwickshire had been under the spotlight recently following a number of concerns about waiting times and difficulties in getting an appointment. The new locations and times were publicised with the local press, with articles appearing in the Nuneaton News and Atherstone Herald .The news was promoted online through sources such as Healthwatch and the CCG websites. In addition, information was sent to practice managers and patient representatives. We handled two media requests from the Health Service Journal. The first was in response to a query about the CCG’s community services contract, its value and when it might be reopened for bidding. The second was with regard to the abandonment of the South West Midlands Pathology Tender. The CCG and member practice Red Roofs Surgery were also featured in joint communications with George Eliot Hospital for their role taking part in the Fun Run to raise funds for the Breast Care Unit at George Eliot Hospital. October We responded to a media enquiry from Nuneaton News about the Continuing Healthcare cases that Farley Dwek solicitors are handling. The CCG response confirmed that all applications received from people within the CCG area are processed in line with guidance issued by NHS England, that individuals are kept informed of the progress and that the CCG does not anticipate that the issue will affect future services as appropriate budgets have been set aside.