Healthwatch Week 2022: What did you miss?
About
Over 420 staff and volunteers from across the country joined us online to discuss some of the most significant issues affecting our communities. Take a look at the key takeaways from each day, and links to any additional resources.
Day one
A message from NHS England
Amanda Pritchard, Chief Executive of NHS England, kicked off our conference by discussing the difference we can make when we work together.
Levelling up listening
In our first keynote session of the week, our panellists discussed how the NHS, local authorities and other public bodies could ensure those most disadvantaged have their voices heard.
Our session Chair, Rev. Charles Kwaku-Odoi, Chief Officer at the Caribbean and African Health Network, kicked off the discussion by posing a simple question to the panel:
"How do we level up listening?"
In response, our National Director, Louise Ansari, highlighted the disparities in funding for local Healthwatch services. As a result, those who face the greatest inequality often have their voices heard the least.
Next, we heard from New Local Chief Executive, Adam Lent. He stressed that to break the cycle of poverty and inequality, we must address the distribution of power as well as resources. He also called for three changes the public sector must make:
- Open up decision making
- Deliver services in a different way
- Break the top-down mindset and put communities first
Finally, Clare Enston, Head of Insight and Feedback at NHS England, took us through the NHS approach to listening and how Integrated Care Systems can work with local Healthwatch to involve communities in health and care.
Healthwatch – our strategy and shared direction of travel
With work on our new strategy underway, we ran a session to hear the views of local Healthwatch about what we should focus on and how the network could support this work.
There was a lot of support from the network to do more work on social care, integration of services and health inequalities. We also need to focus more on working with professionals to understand our remit and what we do so that they are more willing to work with us.
To achieve this, we will continue offering training and support to the network, raising our profile in the media and offering support to people in the current worrying economic climate.
With the departure of our chair Sir Robert Francis KC, we will continue to work on the new strategy when the new chair arrives and are hoping to publish it next spring.
Why engaging people is crucial to tackling health inequalities
On the second day we focused on how Healthwatch can help dismantle systemic inequality and improve universal access to health and care services.
We talked about inequalities because they have a real impact on health. But this session went one step further to see how we can identify system-wide inequalities.
Our five expert panellists were:
- Dr Owen Williams OBE, Chief Executive, The Northern Care Alliance NHS Group
- Dr Habib Naqvi MBE, Director, NHS Race and Health Observatory.
- Andrew Fenton, Transformation Director at NHS South, Central and West Greater Oxford Area
- Rachel Brennan, National Partnerships Lead, Groundswell
- Malavika Vartak, Researcher and Policy Advisor at Amnesty International
Dr Owen Williams started us off by highlighting the importance of the NHS Constitution in holding services to account.
Trust was also a significant theme in our discussion, as Dr Habib Naqvi described :
"Trust is fast becoming a new determinant of health. It determines their decisions of taking up healthcare or not, so listening to people and acting upon what we hear is critical."
We heard from Andrew Fenton and Rachel Brennan about how to tackle inequalities by working with people who know what it is like to not get the care they need because of who they are or where they live.
Finally, Malavika Vartak spoke about people's right to health and how vital high-quality information and clear communication are for ensuring equal access to care.
Tackling health inequalities together
Together with the network, we discussed steps that we can take to connect with and involve our communities to help tackle health inequalities.
We heard that:
- Limited resources and large geographical spread makes it hard for some local Healthwatch to gather quantitative research with under represented communities.
- People tend to get asked the same or similar questions or on similar topics repeatedly, it's important to be able to track impact and report back to these communities to help them understand the value in sharing their experience with you.
- People's real stories helps stakeholders to really understand the context behind the numbers. Bring people to share their experiences so leaders can hear them first hand if you can.
- Using trusted organisations that already have either data or connections that you can use is vital to helping you understand where you can add value and build on existing work.
- Reach out to partnership organisations and grassroot groups through various avenues (online, community events) and see how you can get involved. Start building relationships with communities by providing support instead of requesting information straight away.
Putting a face to unmet need - the role of Healthwatch
Sir David Pearson CBE introduced today's session by discussing the reasons why people have unmet needs:
- Not getting an adequate assessment
- Funding difficulties
- Increased need and demand for services year on year
- Pressure on the health service has a knock-on effect
- Workforce - currently has 165,000 vacancies in the social care sector
Professor Vic Rayner OBE kicked off the discussions around the importance of thinking about the type of care people want rather than simply what they can buy. She followed up by highlighting the problem of the ageing population and that finding staff for social care services will only get more challenging as the ratio of working people to the over 65's decreases – and whether digital options might be the future of social care.
Cathie Williams discussed our mutual concerns of unmet, under met and wrongly met needs. The need for services is rising faster than capacity can grow to meet it, and there is not enough social care services or workers to provide it.
The session wrapped up with an emotional first-hand story from Dorothy Cook. She shared the difficulties of finding help and support when she first became a carer, the pressures the system has put on her, and the daily challenges she faces as a full-time carer.
Unmet need: How we can improve advice and information services
We know that information about social care services needs to improve. People want a a reliable and trustworthy source of advice that helps people understand what support is available to them.
We heard from Hannah Davies from Healthwatch Leeds who said that 41% of people in Leeds didn't know what adult social care services could offer.
However, it's not just about making the information available.
Some of the key changes that we identified are:
- Adult social care services need to be more proactive in telling people what they do and how they can support them by going into the community rather than expecting people to come to them
- People with additional communication needs should have better access eg. plain English and Easy read is essential; information should be available offline in addition to online
- Services should link people to relevant community groups and proactively work with others in the sector to improve access and engagement with people
- Services should empower people to advocate for change and ask the right questions.
Healthwatch Network Awards and showcase
This year our impact award celebrates projects that have used people's experiences to improve care and lead to outstanding outcomes.
The projects entered this year were of an incredibly high standard, showing where teams have gone above and beyond to ensure health and social care services meet everyone’s needs.
As part of the Healthwatch Impact Awards, we heard from the shortlisted Healthwatch about the work they've done:
- Healthwatch Bolton talked about the engagement work they did to increase cervical cancer screenings for people from minority communities. They focused on increasing information and raising awareness to help remove barriers these communities face.
- Healthwatch South Gloucestershire found new mothers without pre-existing mental health conditions were not being offered mental health support by local health services. Their work improved the care offered to new mothers by the health visiting service.
- Healthwatch Norfolk talked about implementing a hearing loss and deaf-friendly charter that highlights good communication practices and ensures people with hearing loss can access primary care online.
- Healthwatch Kent explained how good engagement built relationships with the Nepalese community. Nepalese elders brushed up their digital skills, which ensured they could access care - reducing inequalities.
- Healthwatch Sunderland shared their journey with a local resident to get mammogram recall letters made available in an easy-read format for all women in England who need it.
- Healthwatch Hackney talked about getting over 80% of their local practices to change their patient registration policy, so it's easier for those experiencing homelessness to see a GP.
- Healthwatch Brighton and Hove explained how they got a local GP surgery to reverse a plan to reduce their opening hours. A step which would have left residents struggling to access appointments.
- Healthwatch Bristol shared how they helped bring changes to the discharge process at their local hospital to make it safer for patients and ensure people better understood what was involved.
Awards presentations
Download the presentations from the showcase
The winner:
Healthwatch Hackney, for their work to help make it easier for refugees to see a GP.
Highly Commended:
Healthwatch Bolton, Healthwatch Brighton and Hove, Healthwatch South Gloucestershire and Healthwatch Sunderland were also highly commended for their projects that used people's experiences to improve care and lead to outstanding outcomes.
Have your say on Healthwatch Week
We want to hear your thoughts. What went well, and what can we make better next year? Please take five minutes to complete our short, confidential survey.
