Agenda item

11:05

Rachel Coney, Director of Healthwatch Oxfordshire will attend to present a report on recent projects (JHO8).

Members of the Committee welcomed the newly appointed Chief Executive of Healthwatch Oxfordshire (HWO), Rachel Coney and Deputy Chair of HWO, Dermot Roaf, to the meeting.  They spoke to the report which updated the Committee on key actions and decisions taken by HWO during Rachel Coney’s first month in post.

They undertook to send to all Members of the Committee a link to a transcript and a short film, which was currently on the HWO website, which highlighted the key points of the debate at a conference, co-hosted by HWO Oxfordshire and the University of Oxford Health Experiences Institute, that explored the Government proposals to extract patient data from local GP systems into the national care data system.

A member asked about the recruitment and security checking of volunteers in care homes. Rachel Coney informed the Committee there was some legislation in existence around ‘enter and view’, the interviewing and application process of potential volunteers and full disclosure barring etc. She added that HWO had undergone a rigorous process to ensure that the right people were recruited to undertake a project to take one hundred patients and their relatives on discharge from the acute and community sectors in February 2015 and then to review their progress in acute care/ their own homes or in a care setting. This would be a joint project with OCC, care providers and the Trusts. Another element of the project was to run a simultaneous survey of pharmaceutical care provision on an ‘enter and view’ basis as HWO were of the view that there had been insufficient focus in this field on the patient voice and on patient health outcomes.

In response to a question regarding people’s knowledge of HWO as an organisation, Rachel Coney agreed that this was a challenge. HWO were hoping to bring more attention to their work using the media. She informed the Committee that recently she had been invited to take part in an extended interview with Radio Oxford. She added that a valuable part of the work of HWO was to network with politicians in order to circulate newsletters, give news on forthcoming events and to find out about available grants etc. She reported that HWO were proposing to establish a reference group of informed people representing various groups of people with needs, such as older people living in rural areas with dementia, which would meet six times per year charged with bringing back information. She added that she was aware of the need to build in an infrastructure to the HWO and core ways of working. In response to a member suggestion that chemists and pharmacies would be a good source of information about HWO, Rachel Coney reported that she had already begun to address this and, as a start had discussed this matter with the Manager of Boots, Oxford. Members agreed that councillors would benefit from receiving regular information from HWO, and vice-versa, as long as there was no confusion about the  functions of each. Rachel Coney commented that she would welcome a workshop to discuss this.

In response to concerns expressed by a member with regard to access to health care for prisoners with a mental health problem, Rachel Coney stated that she had begun to address the problem with the prison service in relation to the problems encountered and that it was hoped that visits could be made in the future. However, although mindful of the need to work co-operatively with providers, HWO did not have the capability to make the visits as yet.

In response to the Committee’s query as to whether recommendations from the reports from HWO had been addressed in a satisfactory way by the Health body concerned, Rachel Coney pointed out that she had made a commitment to compile one report on the commitments made to HWO and to bring it to this body and to the Health & Wellbeing Board.

Rachel Coney and Dermot Roaf were thanked for their attendance.