Patient and Public Involvement Newsletter

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Welcome to the new Patient and Public Involvement Newsletter

Welcome to the first issue of the City and Hackney Clinical Commissioning Group’s quarterly Patient and Public Involvement Newsletter ‘Checking the Pulse’. We’ll be sharing national and local involvement news, as well as keeping you up to date with what is happening at the CCG. We are excited to publish this Autum issue and welcome feedback and suggestions on how to make the newsletter work well. We hope you enjoy it!

This month, the CCG is glad to welcome the new Patient and Public Involvement Lay Chair, Catherine Macadam, who takes over from Jaime Bishop. Please read the ‘Spotlight On’ section to find out more about Catherine and her thoughts on Patient and Public Involvement.

Why is Patient and Public Involvement important?

• Through getting involved, you can have a say to help shape the healthcare services that you use.
• Evidence suggests that when patients, public, healthcare professionals and decision makers work together, it results in better services. This results in improved health outcomes.
• It helps to ensure transparency in the NHS.
• City and Hackney CCG place patients and genuine involvement at the heart of the commissioning. Whether you just have a comment about a local service or would like  to get involved in a patient representative group, we want to hear from you.
• We want you to feel that you are being listened to, and that your views are making a valuable contribution in setting health priorities for City and Hackney.
• By having your say about services you are helping to shape the way they are planned, set up and evaluated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To find out more about how local residents in City and Hackney work with us to improve services read our Patient and Public Involvement Report 2013-14.

Please contact eeva.huoviala@nhs.net at City and Hackney CCG with your suggestions, comments and questions.

Your GP Patient Participation Group needs you

 

 

 

 

 

To make sure GP services meet the needs of all patients, your local GP practice is looking for registered patients to join its participation group. Patient participation groups meet regularly with practice managers and GPs to discuss matters relevant to their practice, as well as local and national issues.

As a member you can:

• help to shape and improve your GP service
• have your say on local health and wellbeing services
• help to make sure services meet the needs of different communities
• find out about national issues and changes to the NHS

You will work closely with the City and Hackney Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), representing your community to feedback on how local services are doing. The groups come together as six super patient participation groups three times a year. Here GP Clinical Commissioners from the CCG will discuss, inform and seek your views on a range of issues relevant to people living in City and Hackney.

Ask at your GP surgery for more information on how to get involved.

City and Hackney CCG Innovation Fund

 

 

 

 

 

The City & Hackney CCG Innovation Fund

In July 2013, the NHS issued its ‘Call to Action’, aiming to prompt an open and honest debate about the future shape of the NHS in order to meet rising demand, introduce new technology and meet the expectations of its patients. In November 2013, City & Hackney CCG presented its commissioning intentions – their plans on how they intend to commission services for the year ahead and what the priorities will be. Local residents, service users and stakeholders were invited to the CCG’s Commissioning Intentions event in November 2013 to discuss and influence these plans and to talk about how health services can best meet people’s needs. The Innovation Fund was created in response to the thought-provoking ideas and comments received at this event. These ideas were about more holistic and user-centred service solutions.

The fund was designed as an opportunity to surface and support innovative practice, learn from ideas that are tested in the real world, and use the lessons to shape and improve the eco-system of services available to people in City and Hackney.

The aim of the fund was to surface solutions that met the four themes of the fund: integrated services, building independence, confident and informed users, and involving and listening to patients. These themes were developed based on the ideas raised in November and further community involvement through a workshop attended by representatives of the patient and public involvement group.

In addition to the fund themes, the CCG were also looking to support projects that:

•    showed a deep understanding of the needs of communities and could evidence demand for the interventions they propose

•    articulated a strong case for the change they want to see in services and practices

•    had great ideas about ways to improve and radically transform existing practices, working inside or outside of mainstream services currently provided

•    were able to strongly demonstrate how they are involving users in shaping, delivering and reviewing the solutions they propose to implement

•   are working in partnership to deliver integrated solutions

Eleven projects were selected to receive investment from the Innovation Fund. The mix of projects that made it into the final portfolio of awardees reflects the variety of projects that came forward through the call for ideas and application process. Details of these projects can be found below.

Programme Board	Organisation	Proposal
Children	Family Action	Social Prescribing Programme for children aged 5-11; promoting good health and independence, ensuring children have access to a range of services, support and activities.
Long Term Conditions	St Joseph’s Hospice	‘Compassionate Neighbours’ project will offer competent and confident social and practical support to people living at home with a long term or a terminal condition.
Long Term Conditions	Epilepsy Society	Setting up and delivering self-management groups for people with epilepsy.
Maternity	Hackney Playbus	Facilitating groups that take vulnerable mothers and carers of babies from the ‘one to one’ support offered by Shoreditch Trust’s Bump Buddies and support them in accessing maternity services, children’s centres and other health services.
Mental Health	Mind	Establishing a Recovery Campus in a style of a college campus with the aim of empowering clients via delivering a range of self-management, improved access to information and a peer support system.
Mental Health	Sunbeams	Setting up a peer support (‘big sister’) system for vulnerable Charedi girls.
Planned Care	RLBS	Engaging with young visually impaired people through regular Saturday sports sessions.
Planned Care	Bikur Cholim	Working with the Orthodox Jewish Community to set up peer support groups in particular focusing on Crohns, Colitis and other gastric conditions.
Urgent Care	Doctors of the World	Working with migrant and refugee community in Hackney to provide a service to advocate on behalf of vulnerable people to access timely care working with local GPs and A&E providers.
Prescribing	MIEM (Medical Information for ethnic minorities)	Software to develop and print bilingual pharmacy dispensing labels for ethnic minorities. Possibility of developing an app that will work as a reminder for the person to take their medication accurately.
All	Volunteer Centre Hackney	Neighbourhood Skills Share project based on time banking. Supporting vulnerable people in taking more active role, building confidence and social networks.

 

City and Hackney CCG Annual General Meeting

The CCG hosted their first ever Annual General Meeting in July. We were really pleased to see so many members of public attend and hear about our first year. Please visit our website (www.cityandhackneyccg.nhs.uk) for the minutes and presentations from the meeting. Alternatively, if you’d like these documents emailed to you directly, please contact eeva.huoviala@nhs.net  / 020 7683 4222

Transfer of Cancer and Cardiac services to St Bartholomew’s

 

 

 

Healthwatch City of London has engaged with the North and East London Commissioning Support Unit and Barts NHS Trust to ensure that the transfer of cancer and cardiac services to St Bartholomew’s and University College Hospital are communicated clearly and effectively to service users. They will be following this up with Barts Health Trust in response to concerns from residents.

They have also liaised with Barts to provide an update for residents on the new centralised appointments system that Barts Trust is working towards for all outpatient bookings across their hospital sites and services. This is anticipated to take four to six months to implement and we will be updating residents on progress.

A series of three events took place in July and August 2014, organised by Healthwatch City of London and the City of London Corporation, in different locations to reach a broad range of City residents. The issues looked at included: the type of support people will need to enable them to stay in their home, the types of housing people might need, where people will want to live, how they will access the support and help they need and where people would go in the City to find the best information and advice in the community.

 The Healthwatch City of London AGM will take place on 29 October 2014 at the Dutch Church Centre, in the City. This will include a review of progress to date and will be a further opportunity to discuss the Healthwatch City of London Annual Report. The afternoon session will focus on mental health issues.

If you would like to find out more please contact janinealdridge@ageuklondon.org.uk

Big Lottery Funding for Connect Hackney

Hackney CVS newsletter (11 September 2014) reports on the recent announcement from the Big Lottery. We are pleased to join them in congratulating Connect Hackney.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lottery awards £5.8million to reduce social isolation of older people.

The BIg Lottery Fund announced this week fifteen areas in England sharing £82million to reduce the social isolation of up to 200,000 older people, including £5,866,500 for Connect Hackney. 

Connect Hackney is led by Hackney CVS who will work in partnership with a wide range of key local organisations to create a vital network of health and well-being services for older people across the borough. Extending vital links with health services the project will provide support for those in hard to reach communities, and develop an Intergenerational Programme, bringing younger and older people together creatively and positively.

The money is being awarded through the Fund’s Older People programme. The funding will also help pave the way for support for future older generations.

What is Connect Hackney?

Connect Hackney will support up to 15,000 socially isolated people and those at risk of becoming isolated; such as older people living in poverty, those in rented accommodation and those with health and mobility problems. It will also target vulnerable older men and older people from BME communities, and those going through difficult transitional life phases whose personal circumstances place them at greater risk.

Cynthia White, Steering Group Member of Connect Hackney and Chair of the Older People’s Reference Group said: ‘Many older folk really value living independently at home but as they get older find themselves alone there and cut off from life, losing touch with the people and activities that are key in staying healthy and happy. Our goal in the Connect Hackney project is to make life worth living again for those who feel out of touch and overlooked, remembering how in years past they have helped make others’ lives rich and rewarding. With this wonderful gift from the Big Lottery Fund we now have the means to make that dream a reality’.

Super Patient Participation Groups

City and Hackney CCG are pleased to announce that Healthwatch Hackney have won the contract to start delivering the Super Patient Participation Groups (SPPGs) in City and Hackney. Healthwatch Hackney will be delivering the service in partnership with Age UK in Hackney, and we expect the service to start in October.  We are sure that their understanding of the NHS as well as their knowledge and experience of working with local communities will enable Healthwatch Hackney and Age UK to develop these participation groups into local hubs for involvement. Over the next year 18 meetings will take place at various venues across the borough so there should be a convenient location available for all our residents interested in having a say.

The Super Patient Participation groups meet regularly to share information and discuss current issues affecting the health and wellbeing of the local population as well as local and national services. Through taking part in consultations and other engagement, the super PPGs play an important role in the Clinical Commissioning Group’s public and patient involvement. They have the ability to influence decision making and be involved throughout the commissioning process. They also play an important role in the communication between the practice based Patient Participation Groups and the CCG.

Having a local third party provider with strong links to community and voluntary sector organisations in City and Hackney run the groups will in particular help target hard to reach and vulnerable groups including children and young people, people with a learning disability, people with low literacy skills, people who speak English not well or not at all, people who do not have access to the internet, disabled people, for example people with a sensory impairment any other excluded groups. We also have a particular interest in involving older people and younger people as well as carers.

Transforming Participation in Health and Care (NHS England, 2013) states that engaging and involving communities in the planning, design and delivery of health and care services can lead to a more joined up, co-ordinated and efficient services that are more responsive to local community needs. The National Association for Patient Participation (N.A.P.P.) see patient participation as a way of implementing real, positive change in the communities, contributing towards making the relationship between patients and clinicians more equal.

£300k community fund launched to boost Hackney’s health and happiness

Hackney Council is launching a new grants scheme to provide community and voluntary groups with funding for innovative health projects.

The aim of the Healthier Hackney Fund is to find and support new ways to tackle some of the borough’s health challenges such as smoking, mental health, substance misuse and sexual health. Money from the £300,000 fund will be awarded to community groups and organisations that can demonstrate that their project will make an impact. It has three grant streams: Healthy Activities.

A grant of up to £30,000 to run practical activities that will prevent people from starting smoking or improve mental health. Healthy Ideas. A grant of up to £8,000 to develop and pilot a new approach to tackling the entrenched problems related to substance misuse or sexual health.

Healthy Neighbourhoods. A £1,000 kickstart grant for neighbourhood projects that will get residents helping each other to be healthy. As well as funding, successful bidders will receive ongoing support from the Council’s public health staff to help maximise the impact of projects with their specialist skills, knowledge and connections.

Councillor Jonathan McShane, Cabinet Member for Health, said: “Councils are learning to work smarter and achieve more with the same money. We know that local partners and external organisations sometimes have better ways of doing things, so the Healthier Hackney Fund was set up to make the most of those ideas and the energy and connections these groups have.” “It is a huge opportunity to unite everyone in the borough behind the common cause of improving health and wellbeing and making Hackney a happier, healthier place to live.”

For more information please visit www.news.hackney.gov.uk/healthier-hackney-fund