Update from our CEO, March 2023
As well as getting to grips with things such as budgets and internal recruitment, I’ve been attending lots of meetings and making new contacts. I attended my first Health and Wellbeing Board where our role in supporting the system during COVID was recognised. We continue to support the new Integrated Care System as it begins to lay down plans to implement its new strategy and priorities and we’ve been working closely with our local Hospitals Trusts. Our small staff team - just 5 of us - continue to work extremely hard, supported ably by our wonderful band of volunteers. As the health and social care system changes, Healthwatch will also need to adapt but our core role of collecting your experiences and sharing these with the system as well as provide advice and support to you, will never change. Remember, if you have a story to share, good or bad, please get in touch as your voice really does make a difference. To contact us click here.
April marks the 10th anniversary of Healthwatch being created. We will be marking this by taking a look back over the last decades and celebrating some of the many things that we have been involved in and helped to deliver. Look out for our report and various other posts and bulletins. In advance, and on behalf of the whole team, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to everyone who has supported Healthwatch over the last 10 years.
Volunteers
As well as continuing to help out with our successful Homecare project, volunteers have attended several community events this month. They have also attended meetings on our behalf including Primary Care Commissioning, NHS Sussex Complaints policy – and more. Thank you to everyone.
Staff team
Staff members joined an event at the Dementia Cafe in March where we met with those living with dementia and their families and carers. We made some great contacts and were also able to raise awareness of Healthwatch and our project examining dementia pathways.
Geoffrey Bowden, our Chair, was interviewed on TV and radio several times this month on various topics from dentistry to strikes to GP staffing levels.
Some of our impact
In 2020/21, Healthwatch looked at End of Life care at our hospitals (click here to read our last report). This led to a wider literature review of end of life care provided to LGBTQ+ patients and a follow-up report which is available here. We discussed our report (which is not based on local people’s views, but a review of national literature) with colleagues at University Hospitals Sussex Trust. They welcomed the content and in response, explored what patients were telling them and it was pleasing that in the last three years they had not received any complaints relating to care for LGBTQ+ patients. To not lose sight of the findings we presented, the Trust has proposed:
- To re-share the report again at the End of Life Care Board
- That some of the content is used as a training tool for colleagues such as medical examiners and others dealing with patients and their loved ones at end of life
- To use this training to act as a trigger should anything emerge from their engagement so that this can be reported into the End of Life Care Board in the future.
- Prospectively observe if any issues arise through the Medical Examiners Office which will then be raised at the Mortality Panel
It is great to see how research carried out by Healthwatch is welcomed by our Trust and used to monitor services and identify any potential concerns
Other projects and work
- GP services. We issued a press statement following the publication of our latest GP access report . In response to our findings NHS Sussex leads for primary care (which covers GP services) said:
- Outpatients: We are mid-way through our project which will involve a series of workshops with patients to discuss proposed changes to outpatients. This work is being led by Michelle Kay. We have recruited patients to join this project and our workshops will start in April.
- Dentistry. Healthwatch Brighton and Hove worked with colleagues in Healthwatch East and West Sussex to deliver a contribution to a Parliamentary Inquiry in dentistry in January. Our report was accepted by the inquiry and you can read this here. It is also available on the Parliamentary website
You may have heard a radio interview with the MP leading the inquiry who praised the feedback submitted by Healthwatch teams.
"We’ve had hundreds of pieces of written evidence from trade bodies, professionals, charities, people working in the profession. But quite a lot of it has been from local Healthwatch and from patients themselves, telling some pretty painful stories of…DIY dentistry...home tooth extractions, people tying shoelaces to teeth..."
We have been invited to join a series of workshops looking at reshaping Musculoskeletal services, which includes treatments like physiotherapy. The sessions will build on the existing work that we were involved with in 2021, to develop a new model of care. We will be ensuring that patients views lie at the heart of any changes model.
Other health and care news
Care Quality Commission inspections of our local services
We are aware of the latest CQC inspection for Saltdean and Rottingdean Medical Practice, which following a visit last November, the practice has been rated as 'Requires improvement’. It was rated as 'good' for 'caring' and 'responsive' which is great news for patients. But attention is required for being 'safe' 'well-led' and 'effective'. https://www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-554574721
Healthwatch contacted NHS Sussex leads who oversee quality within Primary care. We were assured that a meeting is being arranged with the practice manager, along with additional support being put in place with the practice. We have been reassured that there appears to be some improved ways of working since the previous inspection, however, as part of the support meetings these improved ways of working will be reviewed.
Healthwatch has reviewed the latest report from CQC following its visit to the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in December and shared its comments with the Hospital Trust. This latest inspection was carried out when attendance at the children’s A&E was 50% higher than usual, due to Strep A so it was reassuring to read that children’s welfare remained a priority. The report also indicates that all patients on the day of the visit were seen within 25 minutes, and 50% within the target time of 15 minutes, despite the large increase in patient numbers. Healthwatch has asked the Trust about the findings which suggest that 19% of patients left the unit without being seen and that patients were not always being actively monitored whilst waiting to be seen.
Our local hospital news
£48 million investment in Brighton Emergency Department
Bringing the new Louisa Martindale Building (LMB) into operation also delivers important wider benefits that our local Hospital Trust can now take advantage of. Among these is a new opportunity to expand the Royal Sussex County Hospital Emergency Department, using adjacent clinical space that is being freed up by other services moving into the LMB. Healthwatch is delighted to learn that plans have been agreed to press ahead with a multi-million-pound radical improvement, not just of the Emergency Department (ED) itself, but also to the way in which the local NHS supports people needing urgent care. A £48 million investment will lead to more space, more resuscitation beds, and a new three-storey treatment centre – the ambition is to completely transform the current ED, which is ageing and cramped, and increasingly not fit for purpose. The new ‘emergency floor’ will be more than twice the size of the current A&E. It will cover the existing ED area, additional newly vacated nearby space and a new-build Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC). The investment for the improvement work is supported by NHS Sussex and national funding. Healthwatch has been asked to join a stakeholder group to routinely feed in patient views to the development and we will also help set up a small group who will look at the proposed plans to expand the Urgent Treatment Centre.
