Agenda item

This report presents the 2018/19 Annual Report for Healthwatch Brent and presents the ‘Social Isolation in Brent – staying well in the community’ report prepared by the Healthwatch Brent team.

Annual Report

The Board received an update from Piia Lavila (Healthwatch Brent), explaining that the annual report highlighted how Healthwatch Brent met their statutory role as defined in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Their core aim was to be an individual organisation that gathered and multiplied patient voices. She highlighted page 5 and page 15 for the Board to note, which showed how resident and patient voices were shared. One of the cases outlined in the report resulted in the voluntary team receiving an award and was now showcased in the Healthwatch England report that had went to Parliament in January.

The Board discussed the paper and noted:

• The Board supported the extension of Healthwatch Brent’s contract for a further year.
• Disappointment was expressed that the experience of residents using Northwick Park had not been included in the annual report considering this had been identified as needing improvement in the CQC report. Patient and resident experience of palliative care was also noted by the Board as missing, and it was highlighted that South of the Borough did not seem to have a good experience of palliative care. Piia Lavila acknowledged the importance of palliative care and advised that Healthwatch Brent were in the process of planning 2021 and palliative care would be a priority. Regular visits to Northwick Park and other Hospitals across the London North West University Health Care Trust were conducted to gather patient feedback and was not in the annual report as it was ongoing data gathering. It was possible to share the data with the Board and noted that there was a brief summary on page 12 of the annual report.
• It was noted that in the previous year Healthwatch Brent had a smaller team, so did not reach all communities in Brent. In the current year, a specific engagement plan targeting hard to reach communities had been put together and those communities would be part of action plans going forward. ‘Hard to Reach’ had been defined as the communities they had yet to engage with.
• Councillor Farah added that himself and Phil Porter, Strategic Director Community Wellbeing, had regular quarterly meetings regarding Healthwatch Brent priorities.

The Board subsequently RESOLVED to note Healthwatch Brent Annual report.

Social Isolation Report

PiiaLavila (Healthwatch Brent) advised that there had been a great demand for information on services for social isolation and their goal was to put all that information into one document to work as a resource for the wider audience. She highlighted that there was a wide range of services available and the initiative came from local organisations highlighting that signposting and knowledge of these services could be improved. It was concluded that this could only be delivered when the Health, Social Care and Voluntary Sector came together and connected services. There was an opportunity to build a collaborative model between the health and voluntary sector, and some examples of existing models were showcased in the report. Particularly, Piia Lavila highlighted recommendations 2 and 5 of the Social Isolation Report, and asked for someone to take ownership and bring together those different organisations. An update could be presented to the Board in 3-6 months.

The Board discussed the paper and noted the following:

·         Phil Porter (Strategic Director Community Wellbeing) agreed, and highlighted that community hubs had now come together with Social Prescribers to see how they could work better together. They were looking at identifying this as a priority for the health and care transformation board, and he advised that the Board may like to include it as a priority also.

·         Tom Shakespeare (Director of Integrated Care, Brent CCG & Brent Council) advised that there was a social prescribing forum, and the CBS was an existing forum running sessions to bridge the divide between statutory and voluntary organisations. He highlighted that this was an opportunity through link workers to be a catalyst for building that new model.

·         Carolyn Downs (Chief Executive, Brent Council) advised that any new model should be put into the existing 5 hubs and not an additional one.

·         Regarding what initially went wrong with the early co-ordination of services, Clair Thorstensen-Woll (Healthwatch Brent) concluded that they did not have a benchmark. They had looked at different services and noted that the blockage was that both the public and service providers did not know about them, so there had been no linkage or referral.

·         It was highlighted that social prescribers would free up GP time as it was estimated that between 30-60% of GP appointments related to social issues. Sheik Auladin (Managing Director, Brent CCG) added that social prescribing in GPs was being invested in, with every GP required to have 1-2 depending on the size of the practice. Navigators and link workers had also been commissioned to link services.

·         Jonathon Turner (Deputy Managing Director, Brent CCG)) advised that they were planning to monitor impact through the steering group, such as demand management for GPs.

·         Sheik Auladin confirmed that the issue would be taken up as part of ongoing work

As no further queries were raised the Board RESOLVED to note the recommendations outlined in the ‘Social Isolation in Brent – staying well in the community’ report.