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May-June 2015 Newsletter
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Contents Page 3 Health Action Week
Page 4 Healthwatch AGM and Funding Fair
Page 5 Health Action Week
Page 6 Access to GP Services Consultation on Day Services and Meals on Wheels
Page 7 Complaints Handling at Diana Princess of Wales Hospital Continuing Care Assessments
Page 8 Volunteering News Partner News
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Healthwatch AGM and Funding Fair Come to our Annual General Meeting on 18 June. The AGM is a public meeting open to everyone. If you are interested in attending, please let us know by calling 01472 361 459. Our AGM is taking place during Healthwatch North East Lincolnshire’s Funding Fair, an all-day event. North East Lincolnshire has not always done well in securing external funding and, with an increasing emphasis upon organisations demonstrating collaborative working, it is even more important that we hear
from the key funders about how we can improve our chances of success.
from you NOW if we are going to go ahead with firming up this event.
We are delighted that representatives from the Big Lottery, Children in Need, Comic Relief and other more regional/local funders have agreed to join us on the day.
Don’t forget you will get a free lunch and refreshments! So, if you are interested in coming along as a member of a local organisation, please let us know by calling our office at 01472 361459.
The Funding Fair is from 11.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. and is by application only from representatives from the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) or wider public sector. We have recently put out an email invitation to local groups and we need to hear
The AGM will be taking place:18 June, 2015 12:15-13:00 The Warehouse 155-159 Freeman Street Grimsby, DN32 7AR.
Welcome to Our New Chair! We welcome Michael Bateson as the new Chair of Healthwatch North East Lincolnshire. Michael was appointed through an internal ballot of the Board. Michael says: “It is with great pride that I introduce myself to you as the new Chair of Healthwatch. I am looking forward to working with all
of our community to support the delivery of quality health and social care within North East Lincolnshire. Healthwatch does make a difference. Going forward with your help, we will put forward the voice of the community to challenge and support services to provide the best quality care for the benefit of our community. It is important that people's voices are
heard to influence the delivery and development of local care. Our volunteers are central to all that we do; without their time and expertise we could not challenge services. I am truly thankful to all who support us. This is your Healthwatch! If there are any areas of concern, please contact us to discuss.”
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Partner News 18-22 May, 2015 is Dementia Awareness Week. There will be an event on Wednesday 20 May at the Floral Hall in People’s Park, Grimsby. For more information, call Alzheimers Society at 01724 848594. 8-12 June, 2015 is Carers’ Week. Carers’ Support Service are holding a celebration and launch event on 8 June from 10:00 to 15:00 at the Humber Royal Hotel in Grimsby and a Carers’ Lunch on 10 June from 12:00 to 15:00 at Oaklands Hall Hotel, Laceby. For details call Carers Support Service at 01472 242277.
16 June 2015 Booth Lifehouse are holding an open day and welcome visitors. The day will include: 10-12 Partnership Stalls 12:30 BBQ Lunch 13:30 Certificate Awards 14:00 Celebration Service
If you are interested in becoming an official Healthwatch North East Lincolnshire partner organisation, call Paul at 01472 361 459.
Consultation on Day Services and Meals on Wheels The North East Lincolnshire Council has asked the Clinical Commissioning Group, which plans and arranges adult social care services, to reduce the adult social care budget by £2 million. Previous savings of £7 million have already been
made without altering frontline services by finding the savings from administrative and general support functions. With less money for services, the CCG have had to design new plans to ensure they are still able to support and care for
people who are the most vulnerable in our society or who have complex needs. North East Lincolnshire CCG would like to know your views on the proposed changes. To complete the survey, visit www.snapsurveys.com/wh/ s.asp?k=143108070860
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Complaints Handling at Diana Princess of Wales Hospital One of the issues we have been pursuing since our first year of operation (2013/14) has been complaints handling at our local acute hospital. We were struck at an early stage about how people were complaining more to us about how their complaint had been handled than the issue(s) that had sparked the complaint in the first place. We have had a series of meetings since with representatives of the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Foundation Trust and last reported on this back in
our May 2014 newsletter. These meetings have been open and constructive and we were able to report to our Board in September 2014 that a number of measures had been put in place to both speed up the process and ensure that complainants were kept better informed of progress.
their website but we have asked that more information is shared with the public about these lessons learnt.
The Trust also has a range of internal mechanisms for making sure that lessons learnt from complaints are shared across the organisation. The Trust has also recently included three `patient story’ videos on
If you need help to make a complaint, the Independent Complaints Advocate can support you and you should ring the Freephone number 0808 802 3000.
If you have had recent experience of making a complaint with the hospital, we would like to know whether you have been satisfied with the handling of the matter.
Continuing Care Assessments We included an article in our November/December 2014 Newsletter about delays in Continuing Care Assessments and our escalation of local concerns about retrospective assessments to the local Health Scrutiny Panel and to Healthwatch England. Retrospective cases are usually where a decision was not taken on whether someone qualified for free continuing health care prior to either their death or moving on from a care
situation (usually in a residential or nursing care home).
Department of Health has set a deadline for clearing up the issue by March 2017.
One problem is that there has been no national requirement to report on retrospective situations, just current assessments, so it has been difficult to ascertain the extent of the issue.
We are delighted that our local representations, supported by the Health Scrutiny Panel, have been met by a positive response by the North East Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group who have put out this work to external contract and plan to clear the local backlog of 117 outstanding assessments by June 2016.
Our work has helped highlight that delays in this area are commonplace and have now reached the point where the
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Volunteering News We are delighted to report that our Enter and View team has grown significantly in recent weeks following fresh recruitment of volunteers and with the staff team also undertaking the prescribed training so that they can contribute directly to the programme of visits. It means that, in addition to our current visits to residential and nursing care
homes, we will shortly be able to start visits to Diana Princess of Wales Hospital, Grimsby. We reported in our last (March/April) newsletter how Healthwatch is regularly ‘on the road’ giving out information and engaging with people both at our regular stands and at other venues like local supermarkets and Freshney Place.
For example we gave out information to 174 people at Asda on 5 May 2015. This work is led by the office team but we would welcome others joining us in this form of community engagement. If you are an existing volunteer and could help or if you feel this is something you could volunteer for, please contact Tayo at 01472 361459.
Access to GP Services Further to our headline report in our March/April newsletter, we have now completed our GP access review. Key findings are:
Half of the people responding to our survey find it difficult to contact their GP Practice. Only 40% of people are able to get an appointment within two days of contacting their GP surgery while one in three people report having to wait for over a week for an appointment. Over half of people are not satisfied with the time that they have to wait.
Although there are no easy solutions, we have identified a range of issues that require action acknowledging that local GP practices have varied appointment systems and approaches to prioritising patients. Future approaches need to help GPs to focus on the most urgent cases. Alternatives that give patients the advice and assurance they need could be developed further. This data is being included in the report that Kevin Cooper, Consultant, is placing before our Board on 18 May 2015. Fuller details of this can be found on our website. We envisage that the recommendations we are making will lead to
further direct engagement with the health community, including GP practices. If our recommendations are accepted we will do our best to make sure that they are implemented over the coming months. We would like to thank those partner agencies that distributed paper forms to their service users. We would also like to thank everybody that participated in the review and completed the questionnaire.
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Meet Healthwatch NEL Our Team
Paul Glazebrook
Tayo Davenport
Bayard Tarpley
Partnership Co-ordinator
Communications & Engagement Worker
Project Support Officer
Our Board
Michael Bateson
Sam O’Brien
Malcolm Morland
Jane Mansfield
Esther Smith
Sean Snelson (Co-optee)
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Healthwatch North East Lincolnshire 146 Freeman Street, Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, DN32 7AN.