Agenda item

To provide an update on Healthwatch Brent’s progress from April to October 2024, and plans for November 2024 to March 2025.

Cleo Chalk (HealthWatch Service Manager) introduced the report, which provided an update on HealthWatch Brent’s progress against its annual plan between April to October 2024. The report also provided a forward plan for November 2024 to March 2025. In introducing the report, Cleo highlighted the following key points:

• A major area of focus for HealthWatch had been on Adult Social Care (ASC), including engagement with particular groups and demographics, a series of enter and view visits to care homes, and mystery shopping with volunteers accessing the ASC customer service line. This had not been a quantitative piece of work, instead focusing on understanding people’s individual stories and the lived experience they went through when accessing ASC. There had been a lot of positive feedback about the experience of receiving ASC and having a social worker in a person’s life, but there had been some challenges around access and access to accessible information. In undertaking this work, HealthWatch had received support from ASC and had worked closely with the Director of Adult Social Care to develop the programme, provide feedback, and consider how to take forward some of the challenges.
• Hospital discharge had also been a focus for HealthWatch during the reporting period. HealthWatch had spoken to residents and care home staff about the challenges they faced when patients were discharged from hospitals into care homes, including concerns regarding the amount of information provided after discharge, confusion from staff on how they should look after the resident once they were in the care home, and the welfare of patients following discharge whilst they were awaiting transport to their care home.
• The third area of focus during the reporting period was GP access, particularly the proposals relating to same day access and how that might affect patients. HealthWatch had spoken to residents about what they wanted to see from their GP and how they would like to contact their GP about their health. This was then being fed back to NWL Integrated Care Board (ICB) to help inform that piece of work.
• The final piece of work HealthWatch had been focused on over the period was maternity, and it was highlighted that Northwick Park Hospital had the highest rate of positive feedback, with no patient who had recently given birth telling HealthWatch they had a negative experience. There had been a small number of patients who had mixed feedback relating to communications, but the vast majority was positive. However, HealthWatch had found that a number of patients were still choosing to go out of Brent to other hospitals for their care, which had been attributed to the reputation of services. HealthWatch had delved further into the reasons for this and those patients had found that their experience tended to be worse due to issues of continuity of care for post-natal services. Following these findings, HealthWatch had met with the Director of Midwifery at Northwick Park Hospital to look at the key themes and consider how post-natal services could be promoted more effectively.

Patricia Zebiri (HealthWatch Manager, Brent) then provided a summary of the work HealthWatch would be focusing on during the next period between November 2024 to March 2025, outlining the key points as follows:

• Work would continue with ASC, particularly the mystery shopping work which was being done together in partnership.
• There would be a focus on the implementation on Pharmacy First and its impact on residents.
• HealthWatch would continue to work with the Northwick Park Hospital Discharge Teams to look at the recommendations made by HealthWatch and their implementation. HealthWatch had already done some good work with the Patient Engagement Team and Discharge Leads.

The Chair then invited contributions from those present, with the following points raised:

• The Board was pleased to hear about the improvements in satisfaction in Northwick Park Hospital Maternity Services and the work going forward to combat any remaining reputational damage, asking if there were any further updates on that workstream. Cleo Chalk highlighted that HealthWatch and the maternity services team had reviewed the key themes of why women chose to go out of borough and the concerns they had raised related to cultural competency and understanding the needs of people from different cultural backgrounds or who spoke different languages. All of those key themes were being addressed by the team at Northwick Park already, but it was recognised there was a need to ensure information was promoted regarding what to expect at Northwick Park. Work was being done with the Maternity Voices Partnership around this, and there were webinars available for people to understand more about maternity services which HealthWatch had been helping to promote. The second part of that piece was around promoting post-natal care, signposting to Family Wellbeing Centres, which HealthWatch heard very good feedback about. Dr Melanie Smith (Director of Public Health, Brent Council) added that, in relation to continuity of care post-natally for patients choosing to deliver outside of the borough, CLCH had done a good piece of work to ensure women received their first health visitor home visit within two weeks of delivery, and offered to loop HealthWatch into a conversation about how the Community Health Visiting Service could strengthen that link of bringing women back into the borough for their post-natal care and linking them to the Family Wellbeing Centres. Mark Titcomb (Managing Director EOC, CMH & Ealing, LNWT) added that the findings aligned with the work being done across the Trust and in Northwick Park so he was pleased to see that triangulation and positive direction of travel.
• Mark Titcomb thanked HealthWatch for the comments received around discharge, particularly to have the feedback from care home staff and residents. He reassured the Board that all patients being discharged received a medical review beforehand and whilst they were waiting to be discharged, whether on the ward or through the discharge lounge, they remained under review by the hospital with qualified nurses looking after those patients. The report from HealthWatch had helped the Trust learn there was more that could be done to make the discharge process smoother for patients and he was grateful to HealthWatch for working with the Discharge Lead and Team to move those improvement plans forward particularly as the Trust moved into Winter Discharge Planning. 

As no further issues were raised the Board noted HealthWatch Brent’s progress against its objectives for 2024-25 and the priorities for the remainder of the year.