Agenda item

To receive and consider the Healthwatch Annual report 2022-23.

The Board received and discussed the Healthwatch Oldham Annual report 2022-23.

Tamoor Tariq reminded the Board that Healthwatch exists due to the Health and Social Care Act 2012 stipulating that each locality should have a Healthwatch. This has been set up in Oldham and the Healthwatch team comprises 5 members of staff and he is the only fulltime individual. There are also eight volunteers who support Healthwatch. Healthwatch is funded by Oldham Council and Oldham Council’s funding is derived from funding received from Central Government. Healthwatch is hosted by Action Together and Tamoor Tariq is managed by the Chief Executive of that group. Action Together manage the finances and human resources background and Healthwatch deliver the services.

Regarding the Income and Expenditure Account for 2022-23, Tamoor Tariq informed the Board that the excess of Expenditure over income for 2022-23 is balanced from overspend and underspend from previous years.

The Board was informed that Healthwatch staff have been working to hear the voices of local people and to represent and act on this feedback. Their work is important to ensure local people can share information about their health and care experiences and they must make sure this includes people from communities that may not always be heard. In 2022/3, they reached out to all Oldham communities via our bi-monthly survey, “The Healthwatch Oldham 100” and through targeted surveys. The information they obtain from these surveys helps to identify key themes on a range of subjects that matter to you and that we can further explore. Next year they will build upon this work and seek to improve their engagement with people with disabilities, asylum seekers, the LGBTQ+ community, and young people. In 2022/23 they used feedback to further explore the experiences of people living with dementia and to publish our findings. They were also involved in projects with Healthwatch Rochdale to review the experiences of partners and family members in local maternity services and with the former Oldham Clinical Commissioning Group to help evaluate how Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) in GP practices were working. They will ensure feedback is shared with service providers and track how it is used to develop services and address your ideas and concerns. They could also take forward views on remote appointments with the Northern Care Alliance and work with them and others to develop guidance for future use.

Last year saw changes to the NHS infrastructure and Integrated Care Partnerships (ICPs) were created to plan and deliver joined-up health and care services. Oldham is part of the Greater Manchester ICP and works with the other nine Greater Manchester (GM) boroughs to improve the health and wellbeing of GM people. Healthwatch Oldham plays an active part in these new arrangements at both a local level and as part of the new Healthwatch in Greater Manchester Network. Being part of this network means they can participate in joint projects and share intelligence. In 2022/3 they used the feedback provided on access to dental services in Oldham to contribute to a GM report that outlined key issues and how recommendations made by Healthwatch England for future NHS dental care may be taken forward. They look forward to working with our GM colleagues in the coming year to represent local views, particularly about Mental Health and the care of Children and Young People.   Healthwatch work with Health Forums attended by local people, stakeholders and partners attend from Forum meetings. Healthwatch gather ideas and intelligence for the Forums for future projects. He indicated the importance of publishing Health so that individuals are aware of Healthwatch and what its services can offer in and at the outreaches of Oldham.

Tamoor Tariq emphasised the need to reach out to communities to gather as much feed back as possible. He referred to the top three priorities set out in the report as follows:

1. Improving Primary Care access for Asylum Seekers and Refugees, by collating their views about their current challenges.

 2. Establish an Oldham Youth Healthwatch and develop a specific platform for young people to voice their views on the local health and social care system.

 3. Tackling health inequalities- Continue to use experiences and data to identify gaps and issues on access, produce reports and work with ICP/ICS and PCNs. We will help reach key demographics such as communities facing racial injustice and the LGBT community whose views are under represented and ensure services are appropriate for them.

With regard issues relating to addressing awareness of signposting for healthcare rather than going to Accident and Emergency (A and E) department. Tamoor Tariq informed the Board that addressing these issues in the Primary Care Network areas was a way forward and promoting their activities, events and informing individuals is important.

In response to discussion around A and E pressures, deprivation, inequalities, poverty and cost of living and how Healthwatch can support the Northern Care Alliance it was suggested that the Board could provide a recommendation in this respect.

Resolved; that

(i)  Healthwatch Oldham look into ways it can support and participate with the Northern Care Alliance to address some of the pressures on Oldham Hospital Accident and Emergency Department by Healthwatch investigating issues relating to inequalities, poverty and the cost of living crisis and how these issues impact on patient numbers through A and E and to measure and monitor outcomes with a view to increasing patient awareness of choices available in the community to help alleviate the pressures on the  A and E department; and

(ii) the Healthwatch Annual Report 2022-23 be noted.