Agenda item

The following information reports have been received since the last meeting:-

Healthwatch Dorset draft Workplan 2020/21

Healthwatch Dorset is the county’s independent health and care champion.  It exists to ensure that people are at the heart of care.

Our dedicated team of staff and volunteers listen to what people across Dorset like about local health and care services, and what they think could be improved.  These views are then used to create our Workplan for the year, so a real difference can be made.

The Healthwatch Dorset Staff Team and Steering Group have drafted a Workplan for 2020/21 based on what people have told us this year, while also giving consideration to national and local priorities in health and social care.

·      Cancer Support Services in West Dorset – Healthwatch Dorset has been commissioned to work on this engagement project, finding out what local people who are living with cancer think of the support they receive. Our findings will influence a local Macmillan pilot project to begin in April 2020 and we will also be gathering more feedback at the end of 2020 to find out if people’s experiences have improved. More info here: https://healthwatchdorset.co.uk/how-would-you-improve-local-cancer-support-services/
 

·      Children & Adolescent Mental Health Services – as part of the CAMHS review this year Healthwatch Dorset will be gathering feedback from marginalised young people eg. children excluded from school, young asylum seekers, young people who are homeless etc. Our findings will feed into the Dorset CCG CAMHS review by gathering feedback from young people who don’t always have the loudest voice.
 

·      Access to Primary Care – one of the most common themes local people speak to us about is their access to primary care. This is a long term project for the year which will need more research, with consideration being given to disabled access, learning disability health checks, carers & older people. This project will also help Healthwatch Dorset develop stronger working relationships with Patient Participation Groups and Primary Care Networks.
 

·      Accident & Emergency Care – in October/November 2019 we worked on a national project, together with 5 other local Healthwatch, talking to people in Poole A&E about their experience. Our findings have helped to inform the national review of A&E performance measures and our local report will be published in February 2020. This year we plan to look at ways of working with Dorset County Hospital and Royal Bournemouth Hospital on patient experience in A&E, to help inform the planned changes to local services following the Clinical Services Review.
 

·      Transport – this is a key theme that local people raise with Healthwatch Dorset. This is a long term project for the year which will need more research and will take into consideration the need for clear and accessible information, disabled access, older people and rural communities. We will aim to work together with Public Health, the local NHS, both local councils, the voluntary sector and Healthwatch England on this project.

As an important stakeholder, we welcome your thoughts on our draft Workplan. This workplan has been designed to allow us enough capacity to work on emerging issues, so please take this opportunity to let us know of any other areas you think we should prioritise.

We want to ensure that we’re working on projects that are important to local people, feed into NHS and Social Care priorities, don’t duplicate work already being done and are able to make a real difference for local people. We also welcome the opportunity to work in partnership, so please get in touch if you’d be interested in working with us.

We will finalise our Workplan at the Healthwatch Dorset Steering Group meeting in March 2020. Please send your comments and any suggestions by email to me at louise.bate@healthwatchdorset.co.uk by 10^th March 2020 at the latest.

‘Your Mind, Your Say’ – seeking views on mental health services for children and young people.

NHS Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group (together with health, care and voluntary sector partners across Dorset) have launched a project called ‘Your Mind Your Say’ to seek views on mental health services for children and young people.

There have been various pieces of view seeking work done by other organisations over the last few years and the CCG wants to add to this with a focus on service provision and then bring all the information together into a comprehensive report about what people think.

We are launching a survey which will run throughout February 2020.  This is available in on-line, paper and easy read versions.  We would like to ask your help with sharing the link to our webpage so that people can access these https://www.dorsetccg.nhs.uk/yourmind/

The survey is for anyone who has a view on children and young people’s mental health services including children, young people and their families/carers. Young people under 16 will need parental consent to complete it.

The more views we collect the better the outcome will be in helping us to work together to improve children and young people’s mental health services across Dorset.

For your information, in addition to the survey we are also planning to visit places that children and young people attend, including schools, youth centres and support groups.  These visits will run until the end of March 2020.

The Committee received information reports from Healthwatch dorset on their draft workplan 2020/21 and from the Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group on "Your Mind, Your Say".

Noted