Agenda item

To present the Healthwatch Brent draft 2025-26 work programme to the Brent Health and Wellbeing Board, outlining priorities for the year and seeking feedback and strategic input to ensure alignment with health and care priorities in Brent.

Patricia Zebiri (Healthwatch Manager) introduced the report, which presented the draft plan of priorities for Healthwatch during 2025-26 and requested feedback and strategic input from the Health and Wellbeing Board to ensure alignment with health and care priorities. In introducing the report, she highlighted the following key points:

• Healthwatch Brent was delivered on 2.2 whole time equivalents, so the need to be careful and precise in where capacity and energy was spent was highlighted in order to demonstrate improvement and impact.
• One of Healthwatch’s main objectives was to work with the community to drive the Healthwatch agenda with what mattered to residents, helping residents to have their voices heard so that changes and improvements could be made from a bottom up perspective.
• Healthwatch had an Advisory Board made up of local residents and people living, working or running businesses in Brent, where these priorities would be shared and monitored.
• Healthwatch continued to work with Adult Social Care and had looked at dementia care, autism and learning disabilities and carried out mystery shopping. Now Healthwatch were doing some independent customer service, ringing random customers who accessed Adult Social Care to understand their experience. Healthwatch had also gone back into the community to close the loop on their feedback, informing residents where their feedback had made a difference  in order to encourage people to stay engaged.
• Healthwatch assisted with the engagement for Brent’s Pharmaceutical Needs (PNA) assessment., helping to increase the level of engagement.  Following that, work would be done to raise awareness of pharmacy services in Brent to improve access to the right places.
• Healthwatch continued to look at GPs and GP access. It was recognised that services were stretched and finances were challenging, making it difficult to deliver services, but GP access continued to be the biggest issue raised to Healthwatch. Healthwatch continued to build on that work focusing on GP complaints and raising issues with GPs.
• Part of the Healthwatch service was signposting and supporting other community units, and currently the service was working with the Brent safeguarding team and the breast screening team to see how they could raise awareness of those particular issues from a health inequalities lens.

The Chair thanked Patricia Zebiri for the introduction and invited comments and questions from those present, with the following points raised:

• In terms of community engagement, the Board asked whether Healthwatch worked with Brent Health Matters (BHM) and whether there were any opportunities to collaborate to avoid duplication. Patricia Zebiri responded that Healthwatch worked closely with BHM and attended their events, but highlighted the importance of Healthwatch as an independent organisation that needed to remain impartial. She acknowledged that BHM was very good at sending information which Healthwatch ensured its grassroots partners were aware of so they could inform their residents.
• Dr Melanie Smith thanked Healthwatch on behalf of the Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA) Steering Group, as there had been a much improved response to the consultation as a result of their support.
• Noting the report stated that Adult Social Care had been responsive to the findings of Healthwatch, the Board asked if that was the case across the board. Patricia Zebiri acknowledged that when difficult information was brought to someone’s attention it did take time to reflect and absorb, so Healthwatch might experience some push back initially, but she felt that generally the organisations they worked with understood the role of Healthwatch and the need to inform services what they were hearing.
• Noting that Healthwatch was looking to complete a piece of work on GP complaints and procedures, Board members asked whether they would be asking questions about protected characteristics within that. They heard that, once the workplan was signed off by the Advisory Board, project plans were developed with milestones, outcomes and expectations, which would all consider where the data was coming from. The aim was to use as much available data as possible.
• The Board asked whether there was anything Brent partners could do to help improve the capacity of Healthwatch. They heard that Healthwatch would benefit from some free or low-rent accommodation as they did not currently have an office base. If Healthwatch did not need to pay rent then it would be able to increase staff to full time capacity, which would make a difference in what it could deliver.

As no further issues were raised, the Board resolved to note the workplan.