Enter and View

By Hannah Baker

Sister Act Leaders Team aims to raise awareness of disability and encourage people to get more involved in the Wandsworth community. We run small groups and advise the council, PCT and local organisations. We all have learning disabilities. We would like to run a drop in support centre for people who have any kind of learning difficulty or disability. We can give face-to-face advice, information and training that is easy to understand.  The drop in centre will be a welcome place where people can have a cup of tea, talk to a friendly person and learn how to be more independent.

So instead of shopping at Tesco, Asda or Sainsbury’s this month, why not go to Waitrose Balham? Drop your green token for Sister Act and help them earn money toward their dream: To provide a face to face advice support and training service for people with learning disabilities by people with learning disabilities.

The National Media is plagued with stories of vital charities having their budgets cut by Local Authorities, and Wandsworth is no different. The Council, in what many will see as a misguided attempt to meet budget cuts, have just slashed ¼ million pounds from the funding for some of the Boroughs most valued Voluntary Sector Organisations.

The cuts, which will come into place in April, will see Age Concern losing £83,000 from their budget, Wandsworth Community Transport standing to lose £20,000 and the Care’s Centre will be without £5,000, if proposals go ahead.

The implications of cutting the vital services these organisations provide has far reaching implications as Jenny Weinstein, the Chair of Wandsworth LINk, which is a voice for care users, carers and patients has pointed out:

‘These are very substantial cuts for the Voluntary Care Sector and they will directly impact on some of the most vulnerable people living in Wandsworth. In LINk’s view cutting voluntary sector budgets that provide vital preventive services is short sighted.  It will not only hurt the most needy people in the Borough, but, in the longer term, it will put more pressure on expensive statutory social care and NHS services which are also seeing their budgets slashed… `

Central Government says it wants charities to start providing more services as part of it’s ‘ new ‘Big Society,’ and its right to believe that local and voluntary organisations are often more effective than the State in tackling social problems. But, if cuts like this continue, they will destroy the very organisations which could and should, form the foundations of this new ‘Big Society’.

Wandsworth LINk’s Enter and View Team have just published their interim report on their visit to Springfield hospital. The team visited Springfield Hospital with a view to talking to some patients with Mental Health problems who were near to discharge. The team were hoping to test whether the discharge was safe, how involved in the process patients and their carers had felt, whether they were uneasy or confident about the plan, and whether they would like any other form of help which had not been planned.

Following consulation with providers regarding this initial report, the team will carry out an additional visit and produce a full report shortly.

To read the Enter and View interim report click here

Wandsworth LINk has just published their in depth report ‘Improving the provision of Hospital Discharge and After Care in Wandsworth.‘   The hospital discharge process is a critical time for patients, their family and carers, but all too often problems occur. By carrying out extensive qualitative research in the shape of enter and view visits and interviews with patients, carers and staff, this report aims to identify the reasons for these often recurring probelms, and to make clear recommendations to hospitals and commissioners on how the discharge process could be improved for patient and carers in Wandsworth. 

The report identified two dominant and seperate cultures; the world within the hospital and the world of services provided to support people at home or living in the community setting. The lack of coordination and ownership of the responsibility for the patient were highlighted as the biggest challenges.

Wandsworth LINk is now aiming to bring together key managers from all the health and care agencies in order to discuss the ownership of action on each of its recommendations. Wandsworth LINk plans to carry out folllow-up activity to ascertain what improvemnets have actually been made.

Click on the link to read the Hospital Discharge report- Executive summary

Click on the link to read the Final Hospital Discharge Report

Wandsworth LINk have now released their first Enter and View Report on Hospital Discharge at St Georges. Below is an introduction to the report, to read the full report merely click here, Enter and View Final Report May 2010

“Hospital discharge was chosen as one of Wandsworth LINK’s four priorities. The Enter and View Team wished to discover more about how patients and their carers experience the discharge process. We intend later to follow the patients into the community to assess the quality and appropriateness of their care and support at home which will help to inform our opinions about the Transformation Agenda-another of the LINk’s priorities. We planned a visit to St George’s Hospital to seek the opinions and views of the patients who were being discharged and their carers.

We wanted to find out how the policies work on the ground on the day of discharge. Particularly seeking to establish whether the discharge was safe and how the patients and their carers felt about the process….”