Meeting documents

To receive the annual report and presentation.

The Health and Wellbeing Board & Integrated Care Partnership:

The Chair invited Gillian Keniston-Goble, Manager of Healthwatch Somerset, to make the presentation. 

Who Are Healthwatch

Healthwatch Somerset speaks up for local people on health and social care in order to ensure that services in the county reflect the needs of the people and communities.  Healthwatch is independent from the NHS, the local authority, and other local health and care services.  People can speak to Healthwatch confidentially about their views and experiences.

Where Did Healthwatch Come From – The Health and Social Care Act 2012 was introduced under a coalition government; it put clinicians at the centre of commissioning and freed up providers to innovate, empowered patients by giving them a voice through Healthwatch, and gave each county focused public health under Healthwatch England, which is an independent subcommittee of the Care Quality Commission, as well as an independent statutory member of the HWBB & ICP.

How Are We Funded – Healthwatch is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).  The funds are essential to ensuring the resources for every local Healthwatch to run a high-quality service for their community and enable the government to track what happens with its investment.  Healthwatch England asks each local Healthwatch on an annual basis to publish the amount of funding they expect to receive from SCC, as DHSC gives the funding to local councils (like SCC), who then commission Healthwatch services.  Additionally, Healthwatch Somerset is hosted by an organisation called Evolving Communities, who support Healthwatch with services such as HR, payroll, and communications.

What We Do – Healthwatch offers help, advice and signposting and have an 0800 phone number, a website, and an email address where people can contact them.  Healthwatch also anonymously records people’s experiences with the NHS and social care and uses them to represent the voice of the community in order to address the services, their commissioners and regulators, and funders.  Healthwatch also visits services to see how they function, goes out in the community to work with other organisations, and produces workplans and reports focusing on important issues for the residents of Somerset.  Because Healthwatch is a statutory organisation, there is a requirement to publish an annual report every year by the end of June and make it public.

Advice, Information and Signposting

Healthwatch provides confidential, free information and guidance on options, services, and making complaints; this includes providing information on Covid-19, supporting the vaccination and booster programme, and helping people to access the services they need.

Feedback – Feedback is gathered from a wide variety of services, including NHS 111, Mental Health, Children’s Services, doctors, pharmacies, dentists, care homes, ambulances, hospitals, home services, and secure settings.  This feedback is collated quarterly, then shared with the stakeholders about whom feedback has been received.

Volunteers

As Healthwatch Somerset is a very small team with four paid members of staff, they could not manage without their volunteers.

Our Board – There are seven volunteers on the Board, each with a specialism within the health and social care system, including Judith Goodchild as the Chair (also on the HWBB and ICB) and representatives who sit on many other boards including SEND, secondary care, the armed forces, dentistry, and others.

What Our Volunteers Do – Healthwatch Somerset has over 34 volunteers who do a variety of work, including acting as ambassadors, giving talks, holding events, completing surveys over the phone, and reviewing NHS publications for readability.  They are Healthwatch’s eyes and ears in the local communities and also work with colleges like Bridgwater and Taunton; some volunteers were involved in the interview process for the nursing degree apprentice posts.

Enter and View Visits – Healthwatch has the statutory authority to make these visits to publicly funded health and social care premises, which are sometimes requested by the CQC and which are sometimes unannounced.  The teams making the visits must be qualified and have their names registered on the Healthwatch website; the visits give them a holistic view of facilities such as care homes as the team speaks with staff, carers, people in care, families, and friends.

Reports – With respect to the reports published last year, a work plan was created using the feedback that had been gathered, and the work plan was agreed by the Board and published.  Then proposals were created using the evidence, and the public was asked to contribute their thoughts and experiences, which were included in the reports.  After review by stakeholders and publication of the reports, follow-up takes place later to ascertain if changes have been made to the relevant services.  There were three main reports last year, including the District Nursing Service, The Young Listeners, and Referrals for Treatment which dealt with the impact of waiting for surgery in Somerset.  (See slides included in the agenda for details of these reports)

2021-22 Outcomes – Changes to the services have been noted, including the three examples above as well as the NHS 111 service, urgent care services, emergency departments, and digital access to primary care.

Our Current Priorities 2022/23

These include reducing barriers faced when accessing services and in particular digital access; examining experiences of being discharged from hospital to intermediate care or back home; championing the voices of young people needing mental health support; engagement work on behalf of Foundation Trusts with respect to the 2023 proposed merger; and resumption of Enter and View visits.

What Shall We Focus On For 2023/24

A Workplan Short List for 2023/24 was provided to those in the room, containing five proposals and asking Board members to choose two, as well as write any other suggestions at the bottom.  Those attending online were able to respond in the chat. Healthwatch must work to a quality assurance framework involving stakeholders to ensure that their work is effective for local communities; but this year, for the first time, they would like to ask members of the public as well to provide input on the proposals, which include a followup to a health visiting project done in 2019, dentistry (which was responsible for over 77% of the calls to their helpline), health and homelessness, a followup to the discharge report with the focus on intermediate care, and the cost of living crisis.  Healthwatch normally works on three topics in a financial year, and their first project of 2023/24 will deal with face-to-face GP appointments and the extended access programme, while the other two are to be decided.

The Chair invited Board members to discuss and raise questions about the presentation.  Lou Woolway, Deputy Director of Public Health, suggested that the emphasis should be not on what we already know but on lessons learned and how they can be used with future work; the cost of living crisis could be a good topic for that.  Gillian Keniston-Goble agreed, saying that Healthwatch wants their work to complement the other work in the system; and she emphasised that they were there to support their stakeholder partners, not criticise them.

Cllr Trimnell opined that the services provided by Healthwatch are the exact things that the public cares about most, and that often people feel that services are provided from medical services downward, rather than from the people/recipients upward.  She asked how Healthwatch was promoting its services and how it would avoid becoming a customer complaint line rather than being able to examine larger issues.  It was replied that the board members are hugely experienced in looking at themes rather than individual complaints, and the CQC also takes feedback on organisations, while individual complaints can go through the Ombudsman system. 

The Chair thanked Healthwatch for the difference they make and asked them to thank all of their volunteers.  He noted the interesting projects, perspectives, and lessons from them and observed that communication is key.

The recommendation was that the Health and Wellbeing Board & Integrated Care Partnership:

The Board approved these recommendations.