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Healthwatch Devon consumer voice issues and Pharmacy Strategy update
A report was shared with JEF members, talking about the key changes they wish to imply including public and professional engagement, addressing specific issues, monitoring and reporting, policy and advocacy.
These steps aim to create a more resilient and responsive pharmacy service in Devon, ensuring that medication supply issues are effectively managed and mitigated. If you have any specific concerns or suggestions, you can participate in the ongoing surveys and feedback sessions organised by Healthwatch Devon.
Hikmat and diverse community involvement
They continue to help and support as new families with education, work and health which includes providing English lessons over the summer period.
Learning Disability Partnership Board
Topics of key discussions from both the Learning Disability Partnership Board and Health & Social Care Group include areas such as personal budgets, direct payments, and the MyChart app.
Collaboration with Devon County Council is ongoing to simplify the application process for people with learning disabilities. The Integrated Transport Team presented an Easy Read application form to the Friendship Group on September 25th. The group has offered to assist in creating a series of Easy Read leaflets.
Learning Disability Friendship Groups
The groups attendance is continuing to grow in numbers and more members have joined within this quarter. They have had a guest speaker come to start discussion around annual health checks and the 16 questions adults with learning disabilities get asked during these checks.
They have also had a guest speaker giving an update on the progress of the new Brooke Unit, where a link was shared to JEF members during the meeting which showed a video that had been produced to recruit new staff.
Autism Involvement Group (AIG) and Dimensions for Autism (DFA)
It was explained that the AIG has currently been paused, there is work being done with Devon County Council to recruit members for an Autism Ambassadors Scheme which will run in a similar way to the one in Torbay.
Devon and Torbay will be working more closely together from the health and social care perspective. Hopefully more work will be done with the ambassadors, they will be going out in the community or for organisations to be able to come and talk to groups. If groups meet monthly, then organisations can be invited to encourage more work to be done.
Carer Ambassadors
A report was shared with JEF members which covered key topics such as:
- Supporting statutory saturation week in Okehampton.
- Involvement in the Devon Dementia Strategy.
- Working with community transport in North Devon.
- Attending memory cafes and patient participation groups.
- Engaging with parish councils and church networks.
By being able to raise awareness of carers’ issues, this has been able to impact certain areas and having being to improve transport options, and better support for carers.
Oliver McGowan Autism Awareness Training
Training is continuing to grow and expanding, branching out in recruiting social care staff.
The amazing work being done has been recognized nationally as they have been nominated for a national award.
Health and Wellbeing Board
An update was given to JEF members, highlights involved:
- Dementia assessments: Devon’s performance and planned deep dive.
- Better Care Fund: Additional funding for discharge support from hospitals.
- Local transport plan: Health impact assessment and public consultation.
Older People
JEF members read through the Age UK Devon report highlighted 3 key areas, such as:
Reach For Independence Service:
- Mixed experiences with the service.
- Communication issues and lack of clarity about the service’s remit.
- Delays in identifying existing support and gaps.
- Confusion for clients due to overlapping services.
- Concerns about staff understanding clients’ needs and goals.
Care Direct Plus:
- Improved initial phone contact with the health and social care helpline.
- Positive changes made based on feedback, making contact easier.
- Fairer Charging: Delays in communication leading to calculation errors.
- Resulting stress and administrative burden for people.
Care Needs Assessment:
- Ongoing issues with waiting times for assessments.
- Lack of support for unpaid carers.
Other Living Options Devon Engagement:
Living Options Devon spoke about projects they have been involved in during the quarter:
- Unleashing Potential project for quality standards of social work practice: they are continuing to have monthly co-productive meetings.
- Care Direct Plus: took part in an element of the mystery shopping for the Care Direct Plus Line. Calls took place in June and July. Positive changes have happened as a result of this impact.
- NHS: work is continuing around annual health checks; working with a wide range of LD groups across the county, hopefully more feedback should be able to be shared at the next JEF.
- New Learning Disability Autism inpatient unit: JEF member thanked who took part in the making of the recruitment video which will help to recruit the best staff possible. The name for the unit is Brooke.
Co-production
Members of The Co-production Working Group and Living Options Devon, presented to JEF members about co-productive work they have been involved in and spoke about their experiences during this. They addressed the challenges they have faced when first starting a co-productive process however the positive impact outweighed the barriers, it was voiced that co-production is a way that everyone can freely voice their opinion in the project and would often be surprised at the supportive response from members within the group.