Agenda item

The Select Committee will receive an update from Healthwatch on current issues.

Alex Francis, Interim General Manager, Healthwatch B&NES addressed the Select Committee, a summary of her update is set out below.

Helping to improve patient engagement

She informed them that last year Healthwatch B&NES carried out its first Enter and View visit to a primary care setting – Oldfield Dental Practice in Bath. She said that following the release of the Enter and View report in the autumn, mydentist (formerly IDH Limited) the company that owns the practice, contacted Healthwatch B&NES to discuss approaches they can use to improve patient engagement in order to better understand their experiences.

She said mydentist expressed their hopes to engage with local Healthwatch projects across England in order to enhance independent scrutiny of the services they provide. She added that they had secured agreement to promote local Healthwatch information in all mydentist practices across the west of England region.

Sustainability and Transformation Plans

She stated that Healthwatch B&NES has started discussions with NHS B&NES Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to explore how public consultation can be built into the development of the area’s Sustainability and Transformation Plan. She said that these conversations will develop during April in conjunction with CCGs and local Healthwatch projects in Wiltshire and Swindon.

Implementation of the Accessible Information Standard

She said that The Care Forum was working with B&NES Council to plan and deliver a network to raise awareness and share experiences of implementing the Accessible Information Standard (AIS).

She explained that the Accessible Information Standard comes into force in July 2016 and aims to ensure that disabled patients receive information in formats that they can understand and have appropriate support to help them to communicate. She added that all NHS and publicly-funded adult social care services must follow AIS by law, under section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

She said that if Councillors do receive correspondence on any matters relating to the residents’ experiences of using local health and social care services that would be of interest to Healthwatch then to contact them in any format they wish to enable further discussion.

Councillor Paul May asked if since the Enter and View visit to Oldfield Dental Practice Healthwatch had taken a pro-active role in looking at other practices.

Alex Francis replied that they have not approached any other practices directly, but the report had been sent to NHS England and the Care Quality Commission (CQC). She added that Healthwatch meet with the CQC on a quarterly basis to share intelligence gathered about local services.

The Director of Adult Care and Health Commissioning said that the subject of Dentistry Services was due to be discussed at a future meeting of the Select Committee.

Councillor Bryan Organ asked if Healthwatch were involved with the work of Patient Participation Groups (PPGs). He suggested that Healthwatch may be involved in future training for PPGs.

Alex Francis replied that they have made some PPGs aware of the role that they perform.

The Chair thanked her for her update on behalf of the Select Committee.