Welcome to our first official newsletter – LINkED UP.

In this issue:

• The Healthcare Commission’s Annual ‘Health Check’ on our local health services?
• What members want from Wandsworth LINk;
• Introducing LINk sub-groups and
• Wandsworth’s Health Profile

THE HEALTHCARE COMMISSION’S ANNUAL ‘HEALTH CHECK’ ON WANDSWORTH
How are our local health services performing in Wandsworth? The answer is just a click away if you want to see what the Healthcare Commission’s annual “health check” has to say about the standards achieved by primary care trusts, hospital and mental health trusts, and private health facilities including hospices, all in and around Wandsworth. This link www.healthcarecommission.org.uk/homepage.cfm will take you to the start page, then just enter your postcode to pull up everything in your area (or type in “Wandsworth” to see the PCT’s results on their own).

Each page has many more “clicks” that take you to more detail and reports that can be easily printed off. The Healthcare Commission’s summary about the PCT said

“Based on our assessment for 2007/08, and for the third year running, Wandsworth Primary Care Trust continued to provide an adequate quality of service to patients. It has been good at managing its finances and has made continued improvements over the last two years. The trust was not one of those chosen to receive an inspection over the summer. In a recent survey of trusts in England, patients rated this organisation as ’satisfactory’ in terms of their overall experience.”

WHAT MEMBERS WANT FROM WANDSWORTH LINk
Wandsworth LINk currently has 215 members, and should continue to grow steadily. Do you remember completing the registration form when you signed up? In it, we asked questions such as what are you interested in and how do you want to hear from us?

• 98% say that they want the newsletter as an email.

We will be sending LINkED UP out about a week after each of the meetings of the LINk Executive Committee so that you can keep right up to date with what is happening and have a chance to comment on discussions while they are fresh.

How do members want to be involved with Wandsworth LINk? (They could choose more than one answer):

• 95% answered “receive regular information about LINks work e.g. Newsletter”
• 76% answered “Attend events to find out about health and social care issues”
• 63% answered “Take part in consultations, polls, workshops or focus groups”
• 33% answered “Receive training to become an authorised person to take part in official visits and inspections to health and social care premises”
• 15% answered “Become a volunteer for LINk (e.g. Helping with LINk administration in the LINk offices, staff support meetings, newsletter publishing)”

The LINkED UP newsletter will keep you informed about all of these activities, and this first issue will take its cue from what you said and introduce you to the work we have completed so far and have planned.

So if you want to let us know if there are things you want the LINk to look into or want to participate, then get in touch with the LINk team - we give the contact details at the end of the newsletter.

THE GOAL OF WANDSWORTH LINk
A Word from Stefan Kuchar – the Chairman of the Interim Executive of the Wandsworth LINk

“Since the first meeting on 17th June this year which put in place the Interim Executive, we have been looking at making the Wandsworth LINk – one of the first in the country to get going – the sort of body that really can make a difference in the quality of health and social care services. We need to
know how best to work on the Executive itself and with all those bodies that make up the networks of organisations whose views and experiences we will be drawing to take to the powers that be to get change and improvements for users.

This is the purpose of the Local Involvement Network – a network of organisations and people in Wandsworth who will take the views and experiences of patients and care services users to go to the bodies who provide your health and social care services and ask “can this be made better?”.

We have met on four more occasions since the first meeting in June and you can see the detail of what was covered at each of these meetings by going to our website – www.wandsworthlink.org.uk/. The meeting agenda and minutes are found under the ‘Resources’ section on the page LINk Meeting Minutes.

INTRODUCING SUB-GROUPS
I want to draw your attention to one particular development which will give you a chance to offer your help and participation in specific areas of the LINk’s work – the creation of 4 sub-groups.

• Resources and Governnance – how we run ourselves and look after the money and other resources
• Communication and Participation – to set up truly two-way communication and get people to engage and participate with our work
• Primary Health and Social Care – to look at the issues arising from the care you get outside of hospital
• Secondary Health and Social Care – to look at what happens in hospitals and the Mental Health Care Trust and carry forward the work done by the Patient Participation Forums that were in existence before the LINk was set up.”

You can find all the details in the document B4 – Wandsworth LINk Sub-Group Structure (this file is also found on the website with the September meeting agenda files). If you are interested in contributing to the work of any of these sub-groups, please contact Simonne Reid or telephone 020 8696 1709).

WANDSWORTH HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE PROFILES
For those of you who really want to get into the facts and figures of health and social care, take a look at
Wandsworth’s 2008 Health Profile (this link opens in Adobe PDF). We have already mentioned the Healthcare Commission ratings for this year. The organisation that looks at the social care side put out a report on Wandsworth in October last year which you can see at http://www.csci.org.uk/care_provider/councils/star_ratings/wandsworth.aspx . Wandsworth got a two star – promising – rating. You can see the Council’s reaction here.

More news and information about health and social care services can be found on our website under the ‘Resources’ section of the website. The most recent updates are Andrew Craig’s reports from the Professional Executive Committee (PEC) of Wandsworth Primary Care Trust (the PCT) which commissions all health services in the borough.

NEWSLETTER FEEDBACK
We want to know what you think of the newsletter – what do you want to see in the future? Also we are very open to deciding the main priorities and directions of our work. What should we be looking at first? Tell us what messages you would like us to carry on your behalf to the powers that be. And if you want us to publish something from you in the Newsletter, either email or write to us, or post feedback via the website here.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Best wishes
Jason Edgington and Simonne Reid

The Wandsworth LINk Host Team