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NHS Wandsworth Changes Plans

Although NHS Wandsworth have consulted on polyclinic developments across the borough, it is likely that several of the new polyclinic hubs which were planned to bring a wide range of services together on a single local site will not now be developed. Of greatest concern are the changes to the plans for north Wandsworth and Battersea. The key hub for this area was going to be a new comprehensive primary care centre in Grant Road which would have provided primary healthcare and an urgent care centre with a wide range of diagnostic equipment on site.

Use of existing and other planned facilities

The new centre is not now likely to be built, with local residents having to rely on facilities contained within St John’s Therapy Centre and the new primary care centre to be opened next year under the railway arches at Clapham Junction.

Will the new services offer what is needed?

The key question is whether there will now be the complete range of healthcare services provided on a single site near Clapham Junction to offer a real alternative to local A&E services for residents needing urgent care. The review of polyclinic developments across the whole Borough will be reported to the PCT Board at the beginning of December 2009.

What is the Wandsworth LINk doing about this?

Wandsworth LINk representatives, as part of their campaign to seek improvements to local health and social care services, will be trying to ensure that NHS Wandsworth comes up with a plan for urgent care services in north Wandsworth and Battersea which will match the facilities available to residents of other parts of the Borough at hospitals such as Queen Mary’s Roehampton and St George’s.

If you have comments on this development, please use the comment box.

The theme of working together for improved services crops up more than once in this the latest report from the PEC committee meeting with the management team of NHS Wandsworth. This is personal feedback from our PECMAN Andrew Craig in his role as the Lay Member on the PEC (Professional Executive Committee).

Better Integration = More Effective Commissioning

The discussion on how best to provide the services needed by drug and alcohol users identified the important point that ‘drug and alcohol services should be considered together for commissioning purposes in close liaison with the local authority.’ Andrew added his own view saying:

“I welcomed the emphasis on better integration and more effective commissioning of these services. The Local Strategic Partnership should be the forum to address the wider non-health issues around drug and alcohol problems as it could involve more stakeholders including the police and courts service. Insight from service users was an essential part of the intelligence the PCT must obtain in order to improve its competencies in this area.”

The benefits of the PCT and Wandsworth Council working together came up again in a discussion about children’s service and how a joint initiative could be established using pooled funds from both local government and health care organisations.

Unprecedented Response – reliable basis for decisions

The South Wandsworth Consultation in which we as a LINk were very much involved had seen an unprecedented level of response from a good cross section of people in the borough.  This means that the information is a reliable basis for future decisions about the service.

In the light of this successful consultation, it is a shame that work going on to decide where future savings could be made did not involve frequent service users. Andrew makes the point that the PCT’s

“customer insight was inadequate to the scale of the decisions we needed to take and this had to be addressed through our engagement efforts. Service users and the general public had to be brought on board with the rationale for this thinking. If they were not, the risk was considerable that reasonable intiatives to achieve efficiency would be misunderstood and rejected by the very people who should be helping to identify them.”

Better Data, Lower Score but Better Service

NHS Wandsworth had collected better information on its drug services which showed things to be worse than had been previously thought and meant they got a lower score on some of the Government’s targets. However the better data means better provision since managers now have a better understanding of what the needs are and how they might be met. Congratulations to the NHS Wandsworth for risking the consequences of getting low marks on central government targets in favour of better local service in the long run.

To view the PEC October 2009 Report document in full, please visit our Health & Social Care page.

Come and join our Open Discussion at the LINk Executive Committee meeting Monday 23rd November.

Wandsworth LINk will be holding its Executive Committee meeting on 23rd November at 7.30 at York Gardens Library, Battersea, Lavender Road, London, SW11 2UG. There will be a presentation on Hospital Discharge and care planning, followed by an open discussion. Please do come along and share your views.

Click here to view the agenda and minutes from the previous Executive Committee on 28th September.

We have renamed the Resources navigation tab on the website to ‘LINks Lookup‘ and moved the meeting minutes and policies files to their own tab called ‘LINk Minutes‘.

For the regular files for all Wandsworth LINk meetings and their resulting minutes can be found on the LINk Minutes page.

LINks Lookup is the place on the website where you can read about the activities of the Wandsworth LINk and other organisations in Wandsworth. We have provided weblinks to various information resources and help for people and organisations in Wandsworth. Check it out.

• Wandsworth LINk Events Diary
  Dates of upcoming Wandsworth LINk meetings & other events of interest
• Health & Social Care
  Current issues and actions in the Wandsworth health and social care scene
• Careline News
  News about social care and health services in Wandsworth published by Careline
• Patient Opinion
  Provides actionable feedback to NHS services in our borough
• Helpful websites
  Websites of interest to visitors to the WandsworthLINk website

Any questions please contact the LINk office.

Join the Magnificent Seven

Seven people have signed up to be part of the Enter and View team of visitors. More are needed to cover the number of visits that may be required for the programme of visits and reports on premises where health and social care services are being used by Wandsworth residents.

Send in your application by Friday 30th October

Barbara Willerton and the LINk want to attract a diverse group of Wandsworth residents to work for users and patients, connect with them and represent their views. You will need some knowledge of health and care services either from work, volunteering or personal experience. You will get training and support and your out of pocket expenses will be paid.

All successful applicants have to go through a Criminal Records Bureau check and agree to have their names as LINk representatives published.

For more details and downloads see the Newsletter and our website or contact the LINk office at the usual address and phone number.

‘Tokenistic’ Consultations a thing of the past

Chair Jeremy Ambache intends to develop further the processes of involving people in Wandsworth health and social care consultations and make ‘tokenistic’ consultations a thing of the past.

The Newsletter talks about lots of different ways in which the LINk has made its views known in the past and the ways in which it will be contributing in future. You can click through to the full text at the end of this news item.

User Involvement Strategy & Transforming Adult Care

Two big topics are Wandsworth Council’s User Involvement Strategy and the process of transforming Adult Care. Irene Storer an LINk Executive Committee member tells us of what happened when the Council offered her the chance of a Direct Payment. Jenny Weinstein explains what is involved in transforming adult care – more control for users thanks to Personal or Individual budgets is a central message. How this is done may create problems for some users and LINk and the Council are working with a reference group of service users and carers to monitor how the project is being put into practice.

A new project and a new set of initials – IAPT

The newsletter mentions a new multi-million pound project to Improve Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT). A LINk person is on the IAPT Board and will be advocating the approach suggested by local networks such as the WCEN and BME networks. For more about these organisations see the newsletter.

Click here to download the LINk Newsletter September/October 2009 (PDF, 755KB)

Business as usual for LINks Exchange

As reported in August, the National Centre for Involvement has now closed. But the service to local LINks provided by the LINks Exchange is now being run by NHS Choices and is continuing to operate as normal and provide a service to people representing the users of Health and Social Care services.

In preparation for the closure of the NHS Centre for Involvement at the end of August, all the LINks related resource materials they have produced for the Department of Health have been reviewed. The review identified a range of materials which remain valuable in supporting LINks and these have been retained and refreshed to take account of policy developments and have been re-branded with the LINks identity.

These documents form the NCI legacy and include materials such as the LINks Guides, the Early Adopter Project reports and materials from all NCI Directorates which supported LINks.

Useful Advice and Guidance Still Available

All of these legacy materials are available on LX network in the ADVICE AND GUIDANCE section of theResources. You will need to register to see them, but this is a simple process and anyone can register. Just visit the LINks Exchange website.

New Protocol on LINks and Foundation Trusts working together

The Foundation Trust Network and the Department of Health have produced a short protocol setting out the different roles and responsibilities of LINks and NHS Foundation Trusts (FTs) for involving the public. The protocol explains how LINks and NHS FTs might work together to maximise impact and minimise duplication of effort.

The protocol is available in the Resources section of LINks Exchange.

The LINk Executive will be meeting at 6 to 8.30pm at the Best Western Lodge Hotel 52-54 Upper Richmond Road, Putney SW15 2RN.

Amongst the 12 items down for discussion, will be the updates from the five sub-groups. Three papers set out matters for discussion/ decision. The executive members will be discussing the topic of democracy and the LINk, followed by looking again at the options on payments for volunteers and finally they are asked to agree the new Wandsworth LINk strapline.

The agenda as well as all the papers can be found via our LINk meeting minutes page.

The Wandsworth Carers Conference – for those who look after an adult in Wandsworth and are not paid for the care they give.

10.30am to 3pm Tuesday 6th October at the Civic Suite Wandsworth High St., SW18 2PU

The LINks will have a stall at this event where Carers are invited to come and have a ‘speed date’ with the people responsible for providing support and services for carers in Wandsworth. These senior professionals from the Council, Health and Mental Health Services will be there to answer your questions about the plans they have made for action and improvement in these area.

National Carer in Chief will be there

Dame Philippa Russell Chair of the Government’s Commission for Carers will be there to give the keynote address.

Free lunch, Entertainment and Other Treats

Meet your fellow unpaid carers and don’t forget to come and tell us what we should be saying on your behalf to the bigwigs. No need to ‘speed date’ us – we’ll be sticking around.

Wandsworth’s Carers’ Strategy

Back in July we posted an item telling you about the new Carers’ Strategy consultation being undertaken in Wandsworth.

There are some 19,000 carers living in Wandsworth and the new Carers’ Strategy will cover how the statutory and voluntary agencies will help carers over the next 5 years.

At that time, Wandsworth LINk welcomed the initiative of the Adults Services Department to begin a dialogue about how to extend involvement and engagement of service users and is keen to work in partnership to implement the proposals. We fully support of the values and philosophy underpinning the Adult Services User Engagement and Involvement Strategy.

Our Response

We have now published our response to the Strategy and you can see it in the Resources Section of the website as the LINk Response to Consultation on Wandsworth’s Carers’ Strategy (PDF). Our response is based on the content of the Strategy and Action Plan documentation, the views expressed by 25 people who attended the two consultation meetings and anecdotal evidence from carers who have approached LINk. Thank you to all those who contributed.

LINk’s focus is on services for adults so comments are not offered about services to children and young people.

LINk recommendations for priority action

Ownership of the Strategy

The strategy is clearly a collaborative project across health and social care agencies. It would be further strengthened if ownership could be extended across all health and care commissioners and providers within the Borough.

Carer Participation

It is appreciated that this strategy was developed with the participation and involvement of carers looking after people from different user groups as well as young carers. Implementation will be strengthened with the development of specific good practice guidelines for involving an even wider range of carers, especially reaching those who need support with financial and practical problems of finding alternative care for their service user in order to participate.

From discussions about the consultation process, it emerged that Wandsworth does not currently have a data base of all carers who have received a carers’ assessment not is there a way of identifying carers via records on service users. It seems that more work could be done to identify and communicate with carers who may be unaware of what is available, even before work is done to identify carers not currently involved with services.

Information

Establish and publicize a multi-lingual help line specifically dedicated to supporting carers with an option for carers to be referred for an individual discussion.

Quality personalized care

Adopt and implement a policy whereby carers are always consulted and listened to

1. in the assessment and review of individual care
2. where services are planned to be changed or closed

Recognition and Respect

Provide carer-led training and involvement in recruitment for relevant professionals to ensure that they fully understand the vital role played by carers as partners in care and their entitlement to be involved and to have a carers’ assessment.

Good Communication

Establish a data base of carers in Wandsworth, inform them of their rights and entitlements and consult them about developments that may affect their lives.

Quality Breaks

Extend and publicize readily accessible affordable high quality respite care, including emergency respite and respite using the Crossroads model.

Health and well being

Extend and publicize counselling, support group and recreational services for carers, including provision at evenings and weekends taking into account the need of carers to find/pay for alternative care for their service user.

Economic well being

Ensure that the Carers’ Help Line can provide relevant benefits advice, debt counseling and information about employment entitlements.