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Welcome to the Healthwatch Rochdale e-Bulletin
Take a look at this video to find out more about Healthwatch Rochdale
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When one gives a spare room and another offers social support…That’s Homeshare!
Wouldn’t it be nice to have somebody helping you with your shopping, gardening or cleaning? Somebody changing that bulbyou can’t reach? Or just someone you can share a bit of time with?
This is what Homeshare is all about. The idea of this new scheme is to bring together people who have a spare room and need a bit of support (‘Householders’) with adults who need accommodation and can provide up to 10 hours of support (‘Homesharers’).
For householders – and their families -, it is a reassuring presence in the house, particularly at night time; and it also helps the homesharer find affordable, quality accommodation, help them to save up for their tuition fees or to get a foot on the property ladder…so it is a winning situation for all!
Whether you need support in your home after being discharged from a hospital stay or somebody for a longer period, the Homeshare scheme has thorough matching procedures, safeguarding and monitoring checks throughout this unique relationship, to ensure the safety of both the householder and the homesharer.
Homeshare has been successful in countries across the world such as France and Australia for many years. Thanks to Big Lottery funding, Homeshare is now starting in your area, so if you think it can help you, a family member or a relative, please get in touch!
If you would like to know more:
Please email homeshare@possabilities.org.uk or call Mathilde or Ruth on 01706 626 747
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FREE Accredited Substance Misuse Awareness Training
Wednesday 14th September, 2016 at 4u18 Early Break Rochdale
Are you a VOLUNTEER who works with young people?
Do you want to be able to identify drugs and signs and symptoms of use?
Do you want to know how to help young people who are using substances?
Then this is the course for you! This CPD accredited professional development training will equip you with the knowledge and skills to confidently address these issues. You will receive a certificate that you can use to enhance your CV. The course is open to VOLUNTEERS in the Bury and Rochdale area who work with young people under the age of 21 and is free of charge (provided you commit to cascading the learning to your colleagues, professionals, parents, carers and young people in the local community). Each volunteer will receive a FREE brand new 40 page ‘Drug Facts Workbook’ and a certificate as evidence of participation in this learning. The training covers the impact of drug and alcohol use on physical and mental health, as well as leading research on Novel Psychoactive Substances (formerly “Legal Highs”) and information about how and when to refer young people into services. Interested? Book early to avoid disappointment as places are limited! Call: 0161 723 3880 Email: info@earlybreak.co.uk
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Devolution has the potential to completely transform Greater Manchester’s health and social care system. This video explains how and why services will change from April 2016 as the NHS and local councils work in partnership to transform the lives of Greater Manchester’s 2.8 million residents.
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Free Wi-Fi internet access at Pennine Acute Hospitals gets the thumbs up!
PATIENTS and visitors at hospitals run by The Pennine Acute Trust will soon be able to keep in touch with family and friends over the internet following the launch of a free Wi-Fi internet service.
A new system has been designed and installed by the Trust’s IT communications team and supplier Wi-Fi Spark Ltd. After being tested in the emergency department at North Manchester General Hospital, the service is now ready to be rolled out Trust wide from the beginning of August.
Previously patients had to rely on their own mobile signal and pay for their own data usage. Now an average of 200 devices per day are being logged on to the free Wi-Fi service at North Manchester General Hospital.
The paediatric emergency department at North Manchester General Hospital was one of the first departments within the Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust to trial the free Wi-Fi access so that children could occupy themselves with internet based activity.
Dianne Cook, lead advanced paediatric nurse practitioner, (pictured) said: “We were very keen to develop the free Wi-Fi access following feedback from children and young people who have visited our A&E department. We have listened to their views following surveys undertaken in the department and in a recent Children’s Commissioner ‘takeover’ day, which involved local schoolchildren working in our department and getting involved in decision-making. The children wanted to have free Wi-Fi access when they attend hospital, and this view has been echoed by adults who often ask staff if they can have access.”
Ray Ashton, IT communications manager, said: “Our Trust directors and leading clinicians have been very supportive in getting this Wi-Fi service implemented throughout the Trust’s hospitals. This has meant a re-design of our current Wi-Fi network and the operational support of a service partner, WI-FI Spark Ltd. The Wi-Fi system is easy to access and totally free for users at North Manchester General Hospital, The Royal Oldham Hospital, Rochdale Infirmary and Fairfield General Hospital in Bury.”
Connecting to the free Wi-Fi wireless network is a very simple process and will be clearly described on posters throughout the Trust. There is also a helpdesk number to ring if patients or visitors encounter any problems.
Eight-year-old Charlie Grimshaw from Middleton took advantage of the new service when he was treated in A&E at North Manchester for an injury to his ankle. His mum, Nicola, said: “I think the free Wi-Fi in A&E is a good idea as it helps parents be able to get in touch with any other relatives they may need to contact whilst in hospital. Also it’s great for kids in A&E as it helps pass the time and take their mind off their illness or injury. Whilst we were waiting to be seen and go for x-rays, Charlie played on the iPad.” Charlie said: “I enjoyed playing games on the iPad while I was waiting. It stopped me from getting bored and made me forget about my sprained ankle.”
Dr Jim Butler, consultant in emergency medicine at North Manchester General Hospital, said: “This is a significant step into the digital age for the Trust and entirely in line with NHS policy on Wi-Fi access as announced by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt in 2015.”
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Police and health services working to help people with mental health needs
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Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and local health services are working in partnership to help people with mental health needs who frequently come into contact with the police.
A 12 month pilot will see mental health professionals from Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust based at the Rochdale Police Station. They will work alongside a dedicated police co-ordinator to help identify and engage with people with mental health needs who routinely come into contact with the police services. Once identified, the Mental Health Practitioner will assess if the vulnerable individual requires further support from either mental health, social care or other support services.
Louise Shaw, Specialist Mental Health Practitioner at Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, said “This is a new and exciting opportunity to build upon the relationship between local mental health and police services.
“It is evidence of the commitment from the local NHS and the police in providing a strong and successful partnership with the common aim of improving the quality of life for some of the most vulnerable within our community.
“We are confident that this will not only bring about positive changes to the lives of people in need, but it will also reduce the demand on the police, health and social care and other support services in our local area.”
Chief Superintendent Chris Sykes said: “Our foremost objective with this pilot is to provide the most effective care and support to those with mental health issues, as soon we are aware of their needs. Having mental health professionals on hand will speed up this process and in turn benefit those most in need.”
Clinical Lead for the Clinical Commissioning Group, Dr Anirban Roy has been instrumental in shaping the pilot, he said; “The team from Rochdale are already working with a number of people who have frequent contact with the police, and with the support of other health professionals are identifying problem cases before they can escalate, helping to reduce the demand placed on a number of front line emergency services. We are confident that the pilot will not only improve the health and wellbeing of these individuals, it will be positive for the community as a whole.”
Joining Louise Shaw on the pilot project will be Mental Health Support Worker Nicholas Blunt, with support from police co-ordinator PC Michael Clarke.
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World Mental Health Day Events
World Mental Health Day is celebrated nationally on the 10th October. This year's theme is "Dignity In Mental Health: Psychological and Mental Health First Aid For All".
To celebrate, Rochdale and District Mind are hosting some "Time To Talk" events around the borough of Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale with funding from Rochdale Council Public Health to host the main World Mental Health Day celebration on Saturday 8th October.
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New leadership team at Pennine Acute Hospitals takes action to support staff in driving improvements and safety following CQC Report
Sir David Dalton, Chief Executive of The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (PAT), says the Trust will be better, stronger and more determined than ever to drive up improvements following the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) Report so that it becomes one of the best and safest NHS Trusts in the country.
In briefings given to Trust staff this week, Sir David Dalton who took over as Chief Executive in April, said he is determined to apply his track record of patient safety, high quality of care and high staff satisfaction, taking the learning from Salford Royal, to drive the necessary improvements and changes at PAT to ensure services are “safer, more reliable and sustainable for the future”.
CQC Rating
England’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals has given the Trust an overall rating as ‘Inadequate’ for services provided by PAT following an inspection by the CQC in February and March 2016.
The CQC – the health and social care regulator - can give one of four ratings to Trusts and services: ‘Outstanding’, ‘Good’, ‘Requires Improvement’, or ‘Inadequate’. A team of CQC inspectors found the Trust provided services that were Good for ‘Caring’, but were deemed overall ‘Inadequate’ for being ‘Safe’ and ‘Well-Led’, and ‘Requires Improvement’ to be ‘Effective’ and ‘Responsive’.
The CQC inspected all four hospitals and all community services run by the Trust:
Rochdale Infirmary was rated as ‘Good’
Fairfield General Hospital in Bury was rated as ‘Requires Improvement’
North Manchester General Hospital was rated as ‘Inadequate’
The Royal Oldham Hospital was rated ‘Inadequate’
All community services run by the Trust were rated as ‘Good’ across all CQC domains
‘Outstanding’ rating given for the Caring domain in the community End of Life Service
Outpatients, x-ray and other diagnostic services rated ‘Good’ across all hospital sites
Although CQC inspectors mostly saw Trust staff “treating patients in a compassionate and sensitive way” during their visits, they reported concerns about the systems and procedures that are in place to keep people safe and free from harm.
The CQC has stopped short of recommending the Trust to be placed into special measures. Under the leadership of Sir David Dalton, PAHT’s new management team working closely with Salford Royal has put in place a comprehensive action plan to deliver improvements.
As part of its plans, the Trust has secured a finance package of £9.2 million with local commissioners and regional and national health and social care partners - additional money to spend on staffing and service improvements.
To continue reading click here
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Transforming the Rochdale borough School Nursing Service
Over the last few months, the School Nursing Team has made a range of significant improvements to benefit the young people they work with and those who care for or work with them.
The work follows the successful outcome of the competitive tender earlier this year, which saw the service awarded a year contract on a rolling basis.
Improvements include:
New service structure:
As part of this every school has a named/link nurse, meaning young people, parents, carers and education staff know who to get in touch with if they have any problems or concerns.
Parent drop-in sessions:
These are now part of the core offer in all primary schools and provide an opportunity for parents to speak to the school nurse regarding any concerns they have.
Between 2 May and 30 June 2016, the team attended 34 new parents’ evenings across a number of primary and secondary schools – thereby raising awareness of the service and what is available to the parents of 2161 pupils.
New uniforms:
Previously the school nurses would wear their own clothes. The new uniforms aim to increase visibility by ensuring the school nurses are easily identifiable as health staff.
They have been well-received by the team. Feedback from children, young people, parents and other professionals has also been positive, with many reporting that the uniform makes staff more visible and easily identifiable, especially within the school setting.
Duty rota:
Each locality team has established a duty rota to ensure that, for a period of each day, a member of staff is on duty to respond to priority queries. They also cover services such as ChatHealth and the provision of emergency hormonal contraception.
This ensures that any priority cases or queries are dealt with and allocated to a school nurse without delay, where necessary.
Mobile working and Paris:
The team has been provided with mobile devices, allowing them to access and update patient information on the go. It also allows them to easily obtain information to signpost young people on to other appropriate services. Previously they would have to come back to the office, so this is making better use of their time.
The team is also now using Paris, which has provided the team with access to improved quality patient information and is helping to reduce duplication and paperwork.
New text message support for young people:
The team launched a new ChatHealth initiative, which allows young people to text their question or concern to the school nurses and receive a reply. They can also make an appointment. The number to text is: 0750 733 0382. Click here to read more.
A significant success saw the team support a young man who was experiencing a sensitive issue and was reluctant to seek support face-to-face. After exchanging several messages with him, he was supported and encouraged to seek the support he needed.
Year round service delivery:
The team now provides a service all year around, rather than just during term-time. During school holiday periods, the team is available in a range of local clinics and community venues. Young people can drop-in or make an appointment.
Contact the team
If you have any queries or would like further information, you can contact the School Nursing Service in one of the following ways:
Telephone: 0161 716 5970
Facebook: www.facebook.com/HMRSchoolNurses
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Developing the UK medical register
The GMC is seeking views on whether the medical register, which more people are using each year, could be even more helpful, relevant and accessible and include additional information about a doctor’s practice.
Despite changes to the way medicine is delivered, the type of information contained on the register today is similar to the version that was first published as a hardback book in 1879. In fact, in many cases, it gives an incomplete picture of a doctor's practice.
The List of Registered Medical Practitioners (LRMP – also called the medical register) is the unique national database of doctors registered and licensed to practise medicine in the UK.
The GMC want to improve the register so it provides more and better information, and is easier to use.
For more information and to take part in the online consultation click here
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NHS England kickstarts programme to help 30,000 more new or expectant mums with serious mental illness
The NHS is kick starting a new programme that will each year help an extra 30,000 new or expectant mums who experience serious mental ill health, offering them the right care at the right time in a bid to reduce even further the rare tragedies that can occur when it is left untreated.
As a first step NHS England is launching a £5m Perinatal Community Services Development Fund to help close a wide gap in the availability of high quality care for women with severe or complex conditions: fewer than 15 per cent of areas currently provide services to levels recommended in national guidelines, and more than 40 per cent provide no service at all.
These specialist community services provide care and support to women with a mental illness in pregnancy or the postnatal period. They also respond to crises, aim to decrease risks to mothers and babies and offer after care following an inpatient stay in a mother and baby unit. The cost of perinatal mental ill health to society is estimated at £8.1 billion for each annual birth cohort, or almost £10,000 per birth.
As many as one in five women experience mental ill health during pregnancy or in the year after birth, covering a wide range of conditions including depression, anxiety or in some cases post-partum psychosis. This affects about 2 in every 1000 new mothers and suicide is the second leading cause of maternal death, after cardiovascular disease.
Overall, £365m has been allocated for specialist perinatal mental health services over the next five years, so that, by 2021 30,000 more women each year will be able to access care and treatment.
Dr Giles Berrisford, Associate National Clinical Director for Perinatal Mental Health, said: “We absolutely need to ensure that all women have the access to high quality perinatal mental health care and are committed to addressing current issues and variation. If left untreated, it can have a devastating impact on the woman affected and her family.
“I am delighted that we can use this fund to build capacity in the community, focusing on what works really well for women and their families and how we can help to spread some of this good practice to other parts of the country speedily and to best effect.”
Health leaders can now submit proposals, focusing on increasing access and improving quality. Local systems will be able to request funding for up to three years, and total funding available will increase to £15m next year and £40m in 2018.
Successful schemes will implement new ways of improving specialist perinatal mental health community care in response to the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health which said that by 2020/21, NHS England should support at least 30,000 more women each year to access evidence-based specialist mental health care during the perinatal period.
NHS Trusts, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and Sustainability and Transformation (STP) areas can submit proposals and must show detailed plans to improve services and measure outcomes.
They will need to show how they will either widen the reach of their service to more places or improve resources for a small team to help more people. They must be explicit about how the growth or creation of the team will provide additional care to greater numbers of women, and provide information on how new staff will be trained adequately to fill the specialist roles.
Plans must include how they will sustainably deliver the best treatment and outcomes for women and families and outcomes from the work will be used to inform and support other areas’ development.
Proposals should be for investment up to three years as the size of the fund grows. There will be two key waves of funding – one from 2016/17 and a second from 2018/19. From 2019/20, monies will be mainstreamed into CCG allocations. There is no minimum or maximum bid.
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Patient Experience Survey for people living with a neurological condition in England
The Neurological Alliance has launched its second neurological patient experience survey. Please follow this link to take the survey.
The survey aims to collect vital information about the experiences of people affected by neurological conditions, including the quality of the treatment, care and support that they receive. It will help us to understand how much progress has been made in improving neurological services, and which areas to focus on for improvement.
The survey opened on June 30th and will remain open until September 30th. We welcome responses from anyone with a neurological condition living in England.
The results of our first patient experience survey, conducted in 2014, were published in 2015 as The Invisible Patients: Revealing the state of neurology services.
The survey data we collected has been invaluable in providing evidence and examples to support a wide range of campaigning activity on behalf of people living with neurological conditions. We hope that this year’s survey will produce an even richer source of data which will set out a comprehensive picture of your experience of neurological services and make recommendations about how care can be improved.
This is without doubt a timely and exciting opportunity for the neurological community.
We need your feedback to be able to make the strongest case to decision makers about how services need to change. We really value your support and look forward to sharing our findings with you over the coming months.
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