Agenda item

Following the Healthwatch paper presented to the Health and Wellbeing Board in April 2025, to provide a six-monthly update on progress against the work programme.

Patricia Zebiri (Healthwatch Manager, Brent) introduced the report, which provided an update on the projects being progressed within the Healthwatch Brent Work Programme between April 2025 – October 2025. In introducing the update, she highlighted the following key points:

·       Along with the changes to ICBs across the country, the government had also announced the abolition of Healthwatch England and local Healthwatch teams. Alongside other colleagues in health and social care, plans were still evolving and there was not much information available on the changes, except that the local Healthwatch functions were expected to be integrated into ICBs. Healthwatch Brent was currently working to a potential timescale of 26 October 2026 with the team as it currently existed.

·       Some positive news that Healthwatch Brent’s Communications and Engagement Officer, who had previously been a volunteer with Healthwatch, had been promoted meant that the establishment had been reduced to 1.6 FTE for the beginning of the year. Recruitment was underway for Fixed Term contracts and Healthwatch expected to be back to its full capacity by the end of the month, but the delivery of the work programme for 2025-26 had been significantly impacted.

·       Work had focused on continued engagement exercises, signposting, raising awareness, Adult Social Care (ASC) work, and health and social care provision. Healthwatch had also formed part of the PNA Steering Group which she advised had been very informative.

·       Discussions were underway with A&E services to see whether Healthwatch could talk to users there to see if pharmacy services might have been an alternative for them.

·       Work had commenced on GP enter and view visits which she advised were very time consuming. Some local Healthwatch teams had decided not to continue enter and view visits as they were concerned they would not have time to wind up services and finish the work before the changes to Healthwatch came into effect, but Brent Healthwatch decided to continue its enter and view programme. Some of the feedback received had been very good with good practice identified.

·       Healthwatch continued to attend as many decision-making meetings as possible, with 27 attended in the first half of the year.

·       Volunteers were helping to deliver the work with 109 hours collectively delivered in quarter 2, and those volunteers helped represent some of the least heard groups in the borough, providing helpful resource for getting messages back down the chain as well. She hoped that benefit would be retained with the new mechanisms for resident feedback.

·       Healthwatch was looking to do a piece of work on Pharmacy First, asking what the community knew about the service and determining whether there were inequalities in terms of knowledge and utilization of Pharmacy First.

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

• In terms of the relationship between Healthwatch and Adult Social Care, Rachel Crossley (Corporate Director Service Reform and Strategy, Brent Council) advised that this was the second year the teams had been working together and it felt very positive, with the department very appreciative of the open feedback Healthwatch was providing. Important messages were passed to ASC, and it was good to see that people were finding information easier following improvements to the website, but she recognised the findings around communications, timeliness of response and consistency. She raised concerns around being able to hear that independent voice when Healthwatch ceased to exist, and felt the work Healthwatch did provided rich information from residents that was different to what the Council did in that feedback space, with Healthwatch an honest broker of information thanks to their relationship with residents.
• The Board asked for more detail about how the feedback Healthwatch provided to ASC was used. Rachel Crossley explained that every time Healthwatch did a piece of work around ASC the service received a report which they had the opportunity read and provide a written response to the recommendations. ASC then acted on those recommendations and Healthwatch published ASC’s response with their report. Some of the feedback had also been used at staff quarterly events to show what residents were saying both positively and where ASC could improve. Communications was a big theme for improvement coming through, which had also been seen in the CQC inspection and in survey results the Council undertook which showed that people did not feel they were kept up to date on where they were in the ASC process. Similarly, consistency had been raised as an issue, so ASC was working on revising the practice operating model and increasing staff supervision. Those themes were also used when ASC undertook audits.
• Patricia Zebiri added that she recognised that it was not always easy to hear difficult feedback and acknowledged that resources were limited as to how much could be done in ASC. She highlighted that one of the successes from that work was achieving a 91% response rate to the random calls. She did think there was an opportunity to do more to gather more feedback.
• The Board was grateful that the GP enter and view visits would continue, highlighting that the government had outlined GP access as a key focus for them, so it was positive there had been good feedback there.
• The Board felt that understanding what residents experienced from the Pharmacy First service would be very important as a relatively new initiative. Patricia Zebiri added that the PNA steering group had proved a good platform to get that work off the ground.
• In relation to community engagement, the Board asked why there had been a slight disparity in reach when quarter 1 was compared to quarter 2. Patricia Zebiri advised that it this was very dependent on the events Healthwatch attended and the service users who turned up. Healthwatch did not run its own events anymore but went to engagement events held by other partners such as health, social care and community organisations, to talk to service users. It also depended on how many Healthwatch staff and volunteers were able to attend the events as to how many people they could speak to.
• The Board placed on record their thanks to Healthwatch for working through this period of significant uncertainty and for providing valuable information for partners about their services. They hoped to find a way forward to ensure patient and user feedback continued to be gathered so that services improved.

As no further issues were raised, the Board noted the report and looked forward to an update on future opportunities and options for resident feedback in the context of health and social care.