Joint Engagement Forum (JEF) – 18th March 2021
JEF meeting held on 18th March 2021
Summary
This quarter the JEF discussions included:
NHS Devon – Covid Vaccination Engagement
NHS Devon put together a presentation about how they approached engagement, and how people feel about the vaccine. Different approaches were made for the survey. People were asked about what motivates them to get the vaccine, and any fears they have about it. The survey identified hesitant, adopters and resistors. Hard to reach groups were targeted and asked about their concerns about the vaccine. The final aims are to promote the national vaccination uptake campaign, utilise trusted sources of information, support those with learning difficulties and to support uptake amongst ethnic minority communities.
March questions included:
Question 1. Are home vaccines going to be made available?
Question 2. How can someone register for a vaccine if they aren’t registered at a GP?
JEF members were given an opportunity to ask questions.
Learning Disability Partnership Board
Their most recent study focused on the impact of lockdown on families, talked about preparing for the future, day care etc, and how they felt services were slowly declining.
The communication discussion group has been set up, and a working group. The friendship group is becoming very successful.
Autism Involvement Group
JEF were given an update on Dimensions for Autism who run groups throughout Devon. The group is now meeting using the Discord online platform: evening groups, DFA main group, DFA LGBT group, DFA Torbay group.
Carer Ambassadors
JEF heard about the anxiety levels of carers, and how the anxieties are around losing replacement care, and losing their care packages. The number of carer ambassadors is increasing, there are now 61. There are still concerns over replacement care, with the bounce back from COVID-19 being questionable. There is a need to identify carers who are accompanying loved ones at COVID vaccine centres, they can’t fall under the radar. It was agreed that a young carer will attend the next JEF meeting to give an update.
Commissioning Involvement Group
It was agreed that CIG meetings would only go ahead if a select speaker was available, so this meant the past 2 meetings had been cancelled. But there was an extra CIG meeting on 15 February which was a focus group to discuss care home uplift fees.
Co-Production Group
This group has been very busy recently, with lots of sessions planned. With the success of the meetings a regular co-production network meeting for anyone who has attended an awareness session who has more questions or wants to find out more. There are upcoming meetings with Carer Ambassadors, Healthwatch staff members of the Commissioning Team. You can find out more information about this group on the Have Your Say webpage Co-Production Working Group – Have Your Say (devon.gov.uk)
Safeguarding Reference Group
The Devon and Torbay Safeguarding 2 boards have been combined, and there is a new chair Paul Northcott, he is keen to get lots of user involvement into the group. There is now a process to see how they can get Torbay to engage with the group, and to use user voice to broadcast what the group is doing.
Equality Reference Group
ERG is working on maximalising representation of protected groups in the census. They are aiming for 75% of surveys to be completed. They are also focusing on the more difficult to drill down groups.
HOPE programme
The Learning disability HOPE course has been successful so far, easy-read course material is currently being created, it just needs to be run past a few people and a facilitator is needed.
Lots of people have booked onto HOPE courses, and the national courses have even been run in New York.
Other LOD Engagement
Living Options Devon were involved in organising BAME groups for the covid vaccine, they have organised and supported the headline vaccine support at the beginning of January, this included getting the perspective of vulnerable service users and how they felt about the vaccine.
Living Options ran the next covid impact report in February, and JEF members were thanked for their support and input with this. LOD attended a social prescribing conference last week where a poster was presented which outlined on understanding what people understood about social prescribing. The outcome from this poster made it clear that people don’t really understand social prescribing as a concept, and awareness needs to be increased. The next is step is working with the CCG to try to get service users opinions and engagement.
Health and Wellbeing Board (HWBB)
JEF heard about infection rates and how Devon are very low on this scale and keeping up with the vaccinations percentage, with the vulnerable, over 80’s and those in care homes being a priority.
At the Devon and Torbay board, the last meeting contained a presentation about hate crime.
Health Watch (HW) Devon consumer voice issues
Devon voices are receiving information about issues over 70 self-referring for breast screening – NHS England has now reversed their decision over 70s not being able to self-refer. They are going to make sure that any changes made are having a positive impact. Continuous feedback is being sent in about problems accessing GPs, online sites, having appointments and e-consult. Issues have been raised with the primary care team, and they are being kept up to date with problems.