To review the Healthwatch Herefordshire annual report for 2017/18 and to consider areas that Healthwatch has raised for inclusion in the committee’s work programme for further scrutiny.

The Chair of Healthwatch Herefordshire presented the annual report for 2017-18.  In his opening remarks he thanked those members who attended the Healthwatch annual showcase event held that morning. It had been a big year for Healthwatch Herefordshire as a standalone company. This was a big achievement, where a lot had been learned from the relationship with Healthwatch Worcestershire, which continues with collaborative work.  The day to day operation of the organisation continued thanks to the appointment of the chief officer, and it was a vote of confidence to have the contract to provide the Healthwatch service extended to 2020.

In summarising the annual report and the work of Healthwatch during 2017-18, he described work undertaken on major projects to properly influence change within the county, which included:

·         GP access – 313 people spoken to about access to GP services. Two thirds were happy with their services, and the findings were being used to make improvements, such as increasing understanding of what different GPs offer and managing reasonable adjustments. A number of recommendations were made and used for a number of projects to realign primary care services around the market towns.  The work also informed a quality review of end of life by the Clinical Commissioning Group. 

·         Public health and children’s mental health – there are plans to work with the new director of public health on further work.

·         Children’s dental health – there was in-depth work on this, involving 537 people, with lots of information gathered, concluding that people needed to know more about what is on offer for dental health.

·         Walk-in centre – work would continue to monitor the impact of the closure of the walk-in centre to see what alternative provision people presented at instead.

·         Hillside - there had been useful meetings with WVT and adult social care around the development of community health and social services.  There were improvements but more needed to be done. The key was how the different parts were co-ordinated and moving people away from having too many carers.

·         Complex and multiple conditions – work was nearing completion around the co-ordination of all the components of care where people have dual diagnoses.  Healthwatch was engaging with special interest groups to find out more about the issues faced. 

·         There had been a lot of contact with people to give information and advice and Healthwatch had moved to visiting existing groups rather than holding general events. Healthwatch had visited 101 groups which had increased engagement and allowed for richer information to be gathered.

·         There was contact with patient participation groups where Healthwatch involvement had positive impact. A good example of engagement with Ledbury health interest group over concerns about the impact of significant housing development led to the issue being raised with the Clinical Commissioning Group.  There was also engagement in Kington and Leominster looking at providing more comprehensive services, and there would be an open public meeting to look at proposals for Leominster.

·         The mental health working group was reinstated, with regular meetings  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8