Joint Engagement Forum (JEF) October 2023

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Safeguarding Community Reference Group 

Planning is still taking place in preparation for National Safeguarding Week that is being held between 20-25th November. Webinars are being for each day of that week covering topics such as: making safeguarding personal, hidden harm/curiosity, financial abuse, exploitation and healthy relationships.

Other Living Options Engagement 

The Unleashing Potential group continuing to work to ensure that Quality Standards for annual reviews are co–produced, they have come up with 3 quality standards which the group have agreed on, these have been delivered to practitioner teams and are waiting to see how that will be embedded into work.

NHS Quality and Equality Impact Assessment Process (QEIA): NHS Devon are working to understand the barriers to their services to allow everyone to have access to the care they need. Averagely 20 focus groups were commissioned in various locations across Devon, the reports highlighted the main barriers including: contacting Health services, communications, no reasonable adjustments, no holistic care, waiting lists, access to GP and dentist and specialists. The reports were able to produce a plan for future improvements to minimize these barriers.

Oliver McGowan Training 

The pilot stage has started and going full steam ahead. Training should be rolled out in Torbay from November then for NHS staff elsewhere. There are lots of meetings with NHS commissioners. Good feedback has been provided from people who have been trained and the reasonable adjustments that are put in place to accommodate all.

Health and Wellbeing Board

It was explained to JEF members that the purpose of the board was to ensure delivery of improved health and wellbeing outcomes for the people of Devon, with focus around reducing inequalities. They also promote the integration the work between health, social care and public health through partnership working with between the NHS, Social Care Providers, District Councils and other public sector bodies. An update from the previous Health and Wellbeing Board meeting on 20th July 2023, this covered areas such as

• Suicide Prevention Update 
• NHS Devon Update 
• Better Care Fund update
• Climate Change and Air Quality update 
• Devon Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy-Priorities and Outcomes Monitoring

Carer Ambassadors 

A carer ambassador attended the JEF to present the Carer Ambassadors Report to members. Issues from carers was shared which included key areas of concern such as: No experience social workers for complex cases, lack of awareness, direct payment issues; cutting back money that wasn’t being used so can’t get quality of care but need money when cared for can be supported.

Hikmat and BAME involvement 

On the 27th September a Afghan resettlement, an advice bureau was able to share a special link for people enquires to help with language difficulties; they will also be able to support and train Hikmat.

On the 19th October a meeting is taking place focused on gambling for young people, training and advise around this issue.

Learning Disability Partnership Board (LDPB)

Two staff members met with the Deputy Director of the Transport and Team Leader for Transport Efficiency about the difficulties on applying for bus passes online, especially for those who have a learning disability/difficulties; Deputy Director of the Transport were encouraged to accept evidence from NHS Devon as more people with learning disability will be known to GPs and hospitals compared to adult social care.

 Having LDPB pre-meetings have been really successful as it is allowing members to have time to understand the topics being discussed at the LDPB and also opportunity to go away and think about any questions they may have for those presenting.

Health and Social Care Group having regular meetings, discussing topics that the group members would like to learn more about.

Learning Disability Friendship Groups 

16 group meetings have taken place since the last JEF meeting, including 2 face to face sessions. 2 members of the friendship group got involved in the interview panel process for a DCC member of staff; one member has also been accepted onto the Oliver McGowan Training.

Dimensions for Autism (DFA) Support Group 

DFA members took part in the Respect festival that happened over the summer. Number of new members continue to grow as people continue to join, over 10 groups are taking place across Devon. DFA gave positive feedback towards Living Options Devon as they have provided incredible support in their roles.

A neurodiverse webinar was run for Health Colleagues, 10 community members attended. It was a lots of discussion around Health inequalities. 

Autism Involvement Group (AIG) 

A discussion around Social Care Services and NHS issues which mean capacity for running AIG more frequently has been reduced but members were reassured that they will still be involved in opportunities of engagement will continue to be shared between meetings. 

Good feedback has been provided by AIG members around the involvement and progression of the adult social care website; members commented on what a great resource the website is.

Update on the C19 vaccine outreach fund 

A presentation was shared with JEF members titled “The exciting story so far, 2021-2023” around the 24 projects funded across Devon. With the Covid-19 vaccine outreach fund bids will be starting as soon as possible, the deadline for these bids will be 31st December 2023.

Older People/Age UK Devon 

Age UK Devon was able to participant in the stakeholder panel interview process for the position of Deputy Director Integrated Adult Social Care Commissioning, took part in the Adult social care peer challenge meeting, and are supporting with distributing the complex dementia adults in care homes questionnaire. 

From previous JEF meeting, it was asked if Age UK Devon could provide quarterly report on client and staff feedback and observations on services provided by DCC with case studies; the first report is currently being drafted so will be shared once completed.

Healthwatch Devon consumer voice issues

Information was shared with JEF members by Healthwatch including the national research briefing on public confidence in being able to access NHS services. This was able to produce key findings including:

• Low public confidence in being able to access NHS services 
• A third of adults in England lack confidence that they can access vital care in a timely way, including GPs, mental health support and hospital care 
• Older people and those struggling financially among the least confident 
• People who have recently used NHS services are more likely to have higher confidence in getting timely care 

Co-production

The Co-production Working Group is currently developing their training and producing a level 2 version of the awareness session which provide practical tools for those who have attended the first session.

They have had 3 co-production awareness sessions around practice operation process team, Community Services Co–design Group, Easy Read Co– production Session which raised an opportunity for a co– production project of their own. 

DCC Adult Social Care Website 

An employee from DCC attended the JEF to give an update on the current status of the Adult Social Care website pages and what changes have been made from the JEF members feedback from previous meetings.

Google analytics since going live; looks at how many hits the site has had 7000 in last 28 days, 6,200 are new hits on the site. The Self-help tool was used by 800 people,140 have since gone through to the self-assessment process. 

The top and most common webpages visited included: contact us, Adult Social Care, Information and advice and Self help. Also popular webpages viewed included Older People , Housing Associations, and Promoting Independence. 

The session was then open to any questions JEF members may have or additional feedback they could give around the function of the website.

Peer Challenge feedback