Welcome to LINkED UP for Spring 2009 – the Voice of the Users of Health and Social Care Services in Wandsworth.

The Wandsworth Local Involvement Network is a membership organisation, open to individuals and organisations in Wandsworth who want to make the local health and social care services better.

In this issue:

• A letter from Jeremy Ambache Chair of the new Executive Committees
  - Priorities
  - Lots of Ways to Get Involved
  – Write for the Newsletter
• News in Brief
  - Day Care for Older People
  - Service Users in the Driving Seat?
  - Local LINk involved in National Dementia Strategy
  - PECMAN – news from the PCT

A Letter from Jeremy Ambache, our new Chair

I was pleased to be elected to take over the Chair of Wandsworth LINk at the first meeting of the new Executive on 16th February and am very encouraged by the broad range of experiences in the user / patient movement that we now have on the committee. We will be able to put that experience to good use on behalf of all Wandsworth people who need health and care services.

A heartfelt thanks from us all to the members of the outgoing Interim Executive for their work in getting this new organisation off the ground. Wandsworth LINk was an early trailblazer and we are learning that while civil servants at the Department of Health can write all the guidance in the world, actually doing the job still holds many challenges. As a member during this time, I saw the Interim Executive facing these challenges and moving the LINk on. Thank you.

A new Executive was put in place after the public meeting in January where 12 names were put forward for the 12 vacancies. For details on who they were, see our news post of 6th January.

We are still only 10 months down the road as the statutory service user / patient / carer organisation in Wandsworth. A continuing and vital part of our development is to get well ‘linked in’ to all the many user and patient groups. If your group has an issue that you feel we need to know about and bring to the attention of the PCT or Wandsworth Council, come to us and we will see how best to add our voice to yours.

Setting our priorities
The Executive has agreed we will try to respond to issues as they arise but also to promote improvement in health and social care on 3 or 4 key priority issues over the next year. We will decide the issues we want to work on if they:

• Have an impact and lead to improved services for users and patients
• are do-able within our resources
• are of general importance with broad applicability for a particular group of users, carers and patients
• cover both health and social care

If you have any views about this please let us know if you can before March 16th. The Executive meeting in April will finalize a work plan for the next year.

Some current issues
I am encouraged by the number of requests for our involvement in the important things that are going on in the health and social care fields in Wandsworth. All these developments are opportunities for us to influence things for the better. Recently, we have been asked to contribute to the current Inspection of Older Peoples Care Services, and also to represent LINk on the South Wandsworth Project Board reviewing Health Services in the South of the Borough. This project is about reconfiguring the way primary care services such as GP surgeries are grouped as well as moving some acute hospital-based services out into primary care facilities as recommended by Lord Darzi in his review of the NHS. The consultation starts in May and we will keep you in touch with developments via the website and LINKed UP.

We are still interested in hearing from you to contribute to the exercise which assesses your local health care provider every year. For more on this see our news post on 10th December last year – ‘Do You Have an Opinion?‘

Get Involved
There are lots of ways that you can be actively involved with LINKs. For example, we need to be able to respond to requests for LINks to be involved in a range of health and care issues. When you joined, you had a chance to tell us on the registration form what your interests were. We may well be contacting you at short notice to help out when the issue is one you have told us you are interested in. If you want to advise us of any new interests, let us know at the contact addresses at the end of the newsletter.

Get Into Print
Another way to contribute is to be a contributor to the Newsletter. Our new Editor Jenny Weinstein wants to hear from you if you want to write and have things to say to the LINks community. Jenny can be contacted through the LINk office – details below.

I look forward to getting to know and working with our members. I’d like to hear from LINks members and from patients, social care users and carers in Wandsworth on any issue in the health and social care fields. You can email me:

Jeremy Ambache
Chair Wandsworth LINk
office@wandsworthlink.org.uk

P.S. Encourage your friends and family to join as members of Wandsworth LINk.

LINKed Up News in Brief

Service user Involvement
A consultation process on a strategy for engaging service users in the proposals for transforming Adult Care Services in Wandsworth has been approved by Wandsworth Council. The proposals are at an early stage and the Director of Adult services, Dawn Warwick is keen for LINK to be involved in further developments.

Day Care for Older People
Wandsworth Council agreed in February to undertake a comprehensive review of Day Care provision for older people in the light of Government Directives to promote independence and choice for older people. A consultation involving all stakeholders will take place over the next 6 months and the LINKS Primary and Social Care sub-group will ensure that the views of older people are taken into account.

Service users in the driving seat?
Users will be in the driving seat – making their own choices and decisions explained Dawn Warwick Director of Adult Services in Wandsworth when she spoke to representatives of the Wandsworth Mental Health Network on the way Adult Services are to be transformed with, for example, one third of eligible service users receiving a direct payment or individual budgets to purchase a personalised package of support to meet needs that they themselves will identify.

Voluntary sector workers and a service user responded to what Dawn had said with their concerns on a range of issues such as the absence of a systematic (not tokenistic) approach to involving users in the new developments, the lack of a community development infrastructure to support the preventive aspect of the strategy and the slow progress in addressing serious problems of inequalities in relation to mental health services for BME communities.

National Dementia Strategy – LINk to be involved locally
A new Government Strategy to improve services for people with dementia and their carers was published in February 2009.

570,000 people in England have dementia and the number is set to double over the next 30 years. The Government acknowledges that current services are patchy or even non-existent and many people are left to manage on their own causing distress to patients and a huge burden on family and neighbourhood carers.

The new Strategy consists of 17 objectives which include: good quality diagnosis and early intervention for all, improved access to care, support advice and information following diagnosis, improved support for dementia sufferers and their carers living in the community and better standards of care for people with dementia living in care homes and hospitals.

LINK members will be involved in the development and implementation of this strategy in Wandsworth. More information: Living Well with Dementia: A National Dementia Strategy www.dh.gov.uk

PECMAN
Andrew Craig’s latest report from what we have called the ‘engine room’ of health delivery in Wandsworth can be found on the LINk website under Resources – Health & Social Care. If you want to know more about commissioning competencies – how the PCT was approaching this and what an external panel thought of its achievements so far take a look at www.wandsworth-pct.nhs.uk/about/WCC/default.asp (PEC and Board papers are available at www.wandsworth.nhs.uk For further information about Board meetings which are held in public contact Sandra Notridge on 020 8812 7740 or e-mail at sandra.notridge@wpct.nhs.uk )

One general point emerged very clearly from Andrew’s commentary on the meeting – how important it will be for the PCT to work with users of health and social care services to make sure that the changes proposed are understood. They need Wandsworth people to go with them on this journey of change and transformation in the way our health services are to be delivered. The LINk will be on board for the whole trip.

CONTACT US

If you have any enquiries (or news/information) for the Wandsworth LINk please contact us (click here for our contact details).