Board Meeting Date of Meeting: Monday 5 th December 2016 Healthwatch Birmingham Board Meeting Time: 4.30 pm 6.30 pm Venue: Healthwatch Birmingham Board Room Cobalt Square, 83 Hagley Road, Birmingham, B16 8QG Attendees Andy Cave Carol Burt - Chair Jasbir Rai Mike Hughes Peter Rookes Jane Upton Naomi Hawkins Di Hickey (Minutes) There were 2 members of the public in attendance to observe Public Session 1 Welcome, Introductions & Apologies, Any Other Business For Noting CB welcomed everyone to the meeting. Apologies were received from Brian Carr and Jonathan Driffill. Declarations of Interest To complete None 2 Minutes of previous meeting (28 th September 2016) BC The board requested that page numbers be used in future minutes. Interfaith week had gone well and positive feedback had been received. 3 Actions Arising All Actions Progress All There were no actions arising. For Action 4 CEO s Report AC For Noting An overview of the CEO report was provided by the Executive team. Effective Executive and Staff Team AC confirmed that there is now a full staff team in place. Chippie (Policy Officer) started in September and a successful two week hand over period had taken place. The transition went well and we continue to build items into schedule of staff training to keep morale up in a time of uncertainty. Staff are kept up to date with news on the contract and it is hopeful that we will have heard from the Commissioner before Christmas. 1
Team training has focussed on a whole team approach, sessions have included training on the database, Information and Signposting Line and team planning around the STP. PR stated that Birmingham and Solihull STP have been transparent with plans and he was impressed with the positive and open way which they have progressed. They have a more joined up service which is what people want. AC commented that despite their engagement with VCS improving, their engagement with the public could be questioned and we will continue to challenge this. We have been told that their plans are to engage and consult with members of the public and patients during quarter 4, however this has not been confirmed. AC stated that HWB have had some influence with regular news articles and updates to the public on STP. A recent news piece was welcomed by the system and there was a lot of action on Twitter and compliments received about it. Effective Volunteer Team NH confirmed that HWB currently have 31 volunteers registered, with an even match of male and female volunteers. We are currently looking to recruit specifically for volunteers to cover the Information and Signposting line and Enter and View. The volunteer details have now been migrated onto the CRM which also offers the possibility of holding demographic information. Demographics are now being captured for new volunteers after recruitment, and we are starting to capture this retrospectively for existing volunteers. NH stated that she would report back to the next board meeting on planned activity in the next quarter. The Volunteer role has been advertised on NHS jobs website to gage how much interest we get with a view to expanding where we advertise. We currently advertise in Do It which is part of BCC and where BVSC advertise. JR suggested advertising via the BVSC E bulletin. NH reported that HWB have recently attended an event at UHB and that details of voluntary roles can be advertised through BCU, and sent to subject leads who distribute roles to students. It is important that prospective volunteers know the nature of the roles and the time period needed as certain times a year are a lot busier. There are also more and more courses asking for volunteer work as an entry requirement. Effective Stakeholder Support AC reported that this year we have seen a shift in how we are accepted by Health and Social Care organisations and fellow local Healthwatch. We are hearing more and more positive feedback from professionals within the system. In particular, we have been working hard to build on our working relationship with Birmingham City Council. Healthwatch England have made new appointments Jane Muldew is now the permanent Chair and Imelda Redmund is National Director (Imelda used to work for Carers UK). This change along with reporting directly to the CQC will see changes at a national level and we will wait to see what impact this change will have at a local level. 2
Local Healthwatch are going to be discussed at the House of Lords in December Only four out of 152 local Healthwatch have been highlighted and Healthwatch Birmingham is one of them. This has raised the importance of Local Healthwatch to remain independent with independent funding. This highlights that Healthwatch England are now taking us seriously. The good work in terms of promoting Healthwatch and raising awareness was acknowledged by all. Quality Standard HWB continue to work with NHS England as part of their CCG assurance process. CCG feedback will be received before the end of year. In line with the Quality Standard going outside of Birmingham, we are talking to other local Healthwatch. The Quality Standard has been trialled with HWEOSC and a number of key challenge questions have been written based on the Quality Standard to show how it works in practice. John Cotton, Chair of HWEOSC has incorporated questions from the Quality Standard into HWEOSC s approach to scrutinising the STP. Our Quality Standard is on the Work Programme for an informal workshop to enable members to use this tool as part of their oversight and scrutiny. AC reported that we are currently developing an approach with the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the Children s Hospital. The Quality Standard is split into four areas governance, commissioners, providers and regulators. It is currently with Mandy Green, Head of Patient Experience Corporate Nursing. Marketing and Communication AC reported that HWB are hearing more with continuous growth in the number of feedback left on our feedback centre and through our Information and Signposting line enquiries. This is due to a combination of social media advertising around Feedback on Friday, the Bus Campaign and increased Community Engagement. Two thirds of what we hear was from the Feedback Centre (including community engagement) and one third from the Information and Signposting line. The Bus Campaign resulted in an increase in people using the Feedback Centre and phoning into the Information and Signposting Line and a lot of the feedback was from individuals who we don t normally hear from and who have no access to the internet and for services we have not heard about before. There is a greater awareness about HWB out there. Community engagement Over the past few months we have attended as many events as possible. We continue to get a good geographical spread and go to places that attract a different mix of people. We have attended an LGBT event. Birmingham Solihull Mental Health event, Mental Health service user group, World Mental Health day at the Irish Centre and a Caribbean Cultural Day event in Kings Heath which attracted people from all over Birmingham and was a good opportunity to speak to other providers. 3
Research & Policy Projects JU reported that the Young Person s report, published a year ago, continues to have impact. A panel to discuss findings of the report was recorded for New Style radio which subsequently resulted in AC being interviewed on New Style Radio on the Different Anglez show. As a result of the report Is every person in Birmingham who is diagnosed with a serious mental illness provided with a care plan?, the Mental Health Trust reports back to us every month telling us what they are doing. The report continues to have an impact. The GP report Can patients with a clinical need access emergency GP appointments in Birmingham showed that in 18/20 cases GP s agreed they were emergency cases and of the 18 only 6 were seen in 24 hours. The report is being published and we have been working with CCGs to understand how they will make changes to improve access to GP appointments in an emergency. This has been difficult to get traction with to lever change due to the long term change programmes currently underway like the GP Five Year Forward View and the STP. Through these programmes access will be looked at, but in the meantime individuals still are not getting access to appointments when they appropriately need one. As a result of this difficulty we have worked with the CCGs and agreed to rewrite the report to be aimed directly to GPs and for the CCGs to circulate this. The intention is that we will put a call out for best practice across the city that can be shared and reported on. JU reported that we have a number of priorities as a result of TIPPs but we need to look at these within capacity as we are uncertain at this time what will happen with HWB after March. Topics identified include: ease of complaining to CCGs about health services they commission, ease of complaining to Birmingham City Council about social care services they provide and joined up services following leaving discharged hospital. JU confirmed that she would make more use of the board when writing reports. PR raised the stakeholder group of ICTT (Integrated Care Transformation Theme). It is a national initiative and each health education region have their own programmes. The stakeholder meeting takes place every quarter and the next one will be held next week at the Burlington Hotel in Birmingham City Centre. Everyone thanked Chippie for policy updates which are sent as an attachment. MH asked about the NHS Accessible Information Standard. AC reported that the journey of this report did not come through robust decision making processes and came along side it. We trialled doing a piece of work around FOI requests to see how the system reacted to this. We experienced considerable delay in getting data via FOI requests and actually upset key partners in the system. As a result the system has requested that we request information direct from our partners using our built relationships. Unfortunately by the time the report was written it was no longer relevant due to the delays. This process confirmed and strengthened why we need a robust system to make decisions. 4
MH reported that 20,000 visually impaired people in the city are missing appointments as they cannot read the appointment letters that are being sent out which is costing thousands of pounds. We stressed that we really need to hear this experience direct from patients and the public and any help MH can give to hear this would be appreciated. If we hear these issues and they are prioritised through TIPPs then we will look at again. The content of the report was noted and the team were thanked for contribution and reports. 5 Any Other Business There was no other business to discuss. 5