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Page 1: Healthwatch Southampton 2dip28xpocu15e.cloudfront.net/2016/11/...Southampton... · accounts of University Hospital Southampton FT, Solent NHS Trust and Southern Health FT. During
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Healthwatch Southampton 2

Healthwatch Your Area Annual Report 2016/17....................................................................... 2

Contents ...................................................................................................................................... 2

Message from our Chair ............................................................................................................ 3

Highlights from our year ............................................................................................................ 5

Who we are ................................................................................................................................. 6

Your views on health and care .................................................................................................. 7

Helping you find the answers ................................................................................................ 10

Making a difference together ................................................................................................. 12

It starts with you ....................................................................................................................... 21

Our Plans for next year ............................................................................................................ 22

Our people ................................................................................................................................ 23

Our finances ............................................................................................................................. 24

Contact us ................................................................................................................................. 25

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Healthwatch Southampton 3

The City, like many others, also faces the

problems of a funding shortage in the

Health and social care sector.

According to the Multiple index of deprivation

2015, the City now ranks 67th worst (out of

326) and shows a worsening position from

2010 when it was 81st. This widening social

inequality was highlighted in a report to

Council by the Cabinet member for Health

and sustainable living.

It is regrettable that a boy born in one part of

Southampton will have a life expectancy 10

years less than a girl born in another and

that it is estimated that over 100 people die

because of winter. Mental health in the City

is a major problem and the latest figures

show that Southampton had the 4th highest

suicide rate amongst the 150 upper-tier

English local authorities.

It is worth repeating, that Healthwatch

Southampton is disproportionally busy for its

size, as the City has a very large Regional

specialist teaching hospital. It is also the

headquarters of a community trust that

serves Southampton, Portsmouth, and large

parts of southern Hampshire. In addition, we

have a large mental health hospital in the

City.

These factors combine to mean that the year

has been another busy one for Healthwatch

Southampton and we have continued to

engage with NHS and social care bodies.

Community engagement continues to be a

most important part of our activity and our

community team has been very active,

attending meetings of voluntary sector

groups and statutory organisations, meeting

hundreds of local people at community

events across the City and I congratulate

them for their continued efforts. You can

read more detail later in this report

As in previous years we have committed to

assist with PLACE (Patient Led Assessment

of the Care Environment) inspections for all

premises that provide in-patient services for

NHS patients. Similarly, we have exercised

our responsibility to comment on the quality

accounts of University Hospital Southampton

FT, Solent NHS Trust and Southern Health

FT.

During the year there was a major national

concern affecting one of the trusts that we

deal with and as Healthwatch Southampton

is firmly established as a point of contact for

many sections of the media we were asked

for and provided comment.

When the local Sustainability and

Transformation Plan (STP) was announced,

we were initially criticised for being slow to

provide our reaction to it.

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Healthwatch Southampton 4

Details are now on our website and we have

allied with other Healthwatch organisations

in Wessex, and are working with the

communications lead for the Hampshire and

Isle of Wight STP, to encourage better

communication and engagement with the

public.

This report includes a lot of information

regarding our ongoing work program and

lists many achievements. One of the many

examples of good work is our involvement

with the local acute trust to improve the

information available to patients and to

improve the way that they communicate with

patients and the public with sensory

impairment. This work has made good

progress and details can be found in the

report.

Although a few days past the year end in

question, I am pleased to report that our

annual General meeting was a great

success. It was attended by approximately

80 people with the CCG and each of the

providers represented. As well as producing

the usual report we arranged a presentation

by Roy Lilley who was, as expected,

controversial in places. There is no doubt

that the public enjoyed it and at the closing

round table discussion we asked members

to provide questions to be put before the

authorities. 30 different questions were

logged and submitted. Each of them was

answered and the responses appeared on

our website.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank

members of the Strategy group for their

dedication and commitment. I would also

like to thank the Healthwatch manager and

his small but dedicated team for their

conscientious efforts on behalf of the citizens

of the City.

I believe this report will give you a flavour of

our varied activities and I look forward to the

next year which again promises to be a very

challenging time for both health and social

care in the City.

Harry Dymond Harry Dymond, MBE

Healthwatch Southampton Chairperson

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Healthwatch Southampton 5

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Healthwatch Southampton 6

Established in 2013 we have been working

hard to improve patient and public voice and

ensure services are listening and responding

to our needs and ideas for improvement.

Healthwatch Southampton has three main

aims:

To be an independent, influential and

effective voice for the public

To provide an information, advice and

signposting service

To provide independent health (NHS)

complaints advocacy

Healthwatch Southampton is made up of

individuals and community groups who work

together to improve local services. We have

a membership which is open to any

interested person or group to join. Members

are kept up-to-date with our activities and

opportunities to get involved and elect the

public members of the Healthwatch

Southampton Strategic Group which steers

our work.

Healthwatch Southampton relies on your

views and experiences of health and social

care services. We actively seek these in

many ways – through surveys, community

engagement and our online feedback centre.

With this information we can then seek

change either directly for individuals or for

affected groups. We are recognised by

health and social care services and have a

track-record in getting change and

improvement.

We are committed to regularly making

reports and recommendations about how

local care services could or ought to be

improved. These are directed to

commissioners and providers of care

services, and shared with Healthwatch

England as well as being made available to

the public.

Having undertaken in depth engagement

over a six month period we held a half day

meeting in the summer with HWS Strategic

Group to reprioritise our strategic themes.

These are the areas where we have focused

considerable attention over the last year:

Social Care

Primary Care

Mental Health

If you have ideas about what we should

focus on we would love to hear from you.

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This is done primarily through face to face

contact, outreach events and meetings with

groups in the voluntary, statutory and

educational sectors. In this section we break

down some of the people we’ve visited

and/or worked with this year:

As part of our continuing efforts to engage

with diverse groups and communities, the

majority of our engagement has been

targeted towards those considered to have

‘seldom-heard’ voices.

We co-produced a qualitative study into

the experiences of local people living

with mental health conditions alongside

the University of Southampton. Based on

this study, we received a grant from NHS

England to create a short animation.

We’re working with Southern Health NHS

Foundation Trust and the Mental Health

Partnership to help develop a service

user group forum.

We attended 3 Mentally Healthy

Southampton meetings and through that

helped to organise a Mentally Healthy

workshop that was attended by 50

people.

We attended a series of anti-stigma

planning meetings and engagement

events

We led PLACE inspections at mental

health facilities Forest Lodge and

Antelope House.

We helped plan and organise ‘Keeping

the Hope Day’ as part of World Suicide

Prevention Day.

Working alongside young people from

the National Citizenship Scheme, we

spoke to over 150 young people whilst

co-producing a Youth Healthcare

Questionnaire.

We attended City College Southampton’s

LGBT and Sexual Health Awareness

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Event and conducted a sexual health

survey.

We visited No Limits Teen Safe House

and forwarded young people’s

experiences of mental health to No Limits

and the NHS

Following our work on reducing barriers

to GP registration, we produced a

Registering with a GP Report that was

used as the basis for a series of regional

reports. We also created a short film to

continue to bring awareness to this issue.

As a means of reaching out to our

diverse local community we appeared on

Awaaz FM twice and Unity 101

Community Hour once.

We had a stall at Mela Festival and

collected patient experiences for our

Feedback Centre.

We helped to ensure Consult and

Challenge was able to continue operating

and relocate following the end of its

funding.

We were invited by the Homeless

Healthcare Team to attend three

outreach sessions and conduct some

service user feedback.

We supported the launch of Dementia

Friends Southampton, speaking at their

launch.

We helped establish Let’s Loop, a group

that aims to improve access to hearing

loops in the City.

We were aware that there are individuals

that live outside of our remit (SO14-19)

but use services within this area. To help

ensure we reached those individuals, we

carried out a series of engagement

events at Southampton General Hospital.

Throughout 2016 we asked over 350 people

for ‘One change that would improve my

health.’ Responses varied with a particular

focus on the need to exercise more and eat

healthier.

A significant amount of the public noted their

desire for more gym/swimming facilities and

an overall improvement of NHS services.

As part of our website redesign, we launched our Feedback Centre in 2016 that enables people to leave feedback about local health and care services. The public are able to leave their reviews anonymously which are then moderated to make sure they are appropriate. This feedback has enabled us to work with local service providers to advocate for changes and improvements and to champion the success stories we hear about. To date, almost 200 people have left feedback through our website and through engagement events.

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Healthwatch Southampton, regards Patient

Led Assessments of the Care Environment

(PLACE) assessments as an important part

of our work.

These assessments require local people go

into hospitals as part of teams to assess

how the environment supports patient’s

privacy and dignity, food, cleanliness, and

general building maintenance.

Members of Healthwatch Southampton have

been involved in this process assessing all

buildings and wards run by NHS and private

providers that cater for NHS patients.

We have noted this year that some

organisations have not applied the ‘rules’ of

PLACE as they should. Examples include

allowing the date to become known, NHS

staff attempting to excuse problems,

Healthwatch not called as the lead provider

of patient representatives, etc. As a result,

we intend to write a general note to all

providers reminding them what is expected

from a PLACE inspection to avoid a

repetition next year.

Despite these concerns the inspection

process has been successful and small but

important changes have resulted. In one

case, a fairly major concern led to the

provider making internal enquiries to rectify

the situation. NHS England will publish these

results later in the year.

Over the past year we carried out PLACE

Inspections at the following locations:

Princess Anne Hospital

Southampton General Hospital

Countess Mountbatten House

The Western Hospital

Royal South Hants Hospital

The Southampton Treatment Centre

(Care UK)

The Spire Hospital

Antelope House

Forest Lodge

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This service is provided over the phone,

through email and sometimes face-to-face.

The reach of this service is extended

through a contract we have in place with

Southampton CAB, and through a directory

of services on the Healthwatch Southampton

website, were the public can also leave

reviews of local services and see what other

people are saying.

Over the last year we have assisted in 227

enquiries to our information service. The

nature of these enquiries is shown in the

pie chart (right):

Of these enquiries:

17% were requests for information.

10% were raising concerns.

73% were complaining about some

aspect of care.

Where people have wanted assistance in

making a complaint we refer to SeAp, who

provide independent health complaints

advocacy. However, this service does not

extend to social care complaints. Where the

problem is regarding social care, the team

are able to signpost to other local

organisations who may be able to help, and

if none exist we often spend a considerable

amount of time liaising with social care staff

to help find a solution.

Social care (66) General enquries (65)

Hospital services (28) GP (26)

Other services (14) mental health (10)

Dentistry (7) Ambulance (3)

Children's services (3) Care homes (2)

Pharmacy (1) Outpatients (1)

Finance (1)

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Mrs B contacted us regarding a delay in an

ambulance reaching her partner who was

seriously unwell and who subsequently died.

She initially contacted 111 and the concern

was over the time delay in the call being

triaged and the ambulance arriving.

Healthwatch Southampton contacted South

Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) on her

behalf who investigated the call and spoke

to Mrs B to discuss what happened and

what lessons could be learned.

Mr P, an 80 year old man, called our

information line from Southampton General

Hospital, where he said he was being held

against his will under the Mental Capacity

Act. The Healthwatch Southampton worker

contacted the Deprivation of Liberty

Safeguarding (DoLS) lead at Southampton

City Council to raise this as an urgent

concern. Local organisation Solent Mind,

who provide Independent Mental Capacity

Advocates (IMCA), were also informed.

Subsequently the advocates were able to

visit Mr P in hospital and the Mental

Capacity Act ruling was revisited. Mr P was

safely discharged home the following day.

Mrs K contacted us regarding the delay in

getting support boots which have to be

specially made for her. The company in

question had made errors and mistakes and

she was in severe day-to-day pain without

the boots. Healthwatch Southampton

contacted the company and local

commissioners to highlight failings in the

supply chain. Eventually the correct boots

were reordered and arrived.

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Our investigations have enabled us to shine

a light on areas of best practice locally, and

also show were things need improving.

Through our relationships with local

providers and commissioners of services we

are able to use your views and experiences

to influence and improve local health and

care services.

Over the course of the year Healthwatch

Southampton has published 15 reports,

which are available on our website, and

the highlights are briefly described

below.

Ladies Walk and Midanbury Surgeries

As part of this work we held a series of

engagement events at Ladies Walk &

Midanbury Surgeries, surveying a total of 50

patients during 3 engagement events

throughout February – April 2017. Overall,

feedback about the surgeries was positive,

however a number of areas were raised as

needing improvement including appointment

waiting times, continuity of care and

accessibility of the premises. The practice

manager responded to HWS with

improvements they are planning to make.

Homeless Healthcare Team

Healthwatch Southampton was invited by

the Homeless Healthcare Team to conduct a

survey around patient experience. We spoke

to 36 clients during this time and asked them

a series of questions. The patients that we

surveyed were extremely positive about the

service provided by the Homeless

Healthcare Team. Generally speaking,

appointments were easier to get, lasted

longer than an average GP appointment,

and patients said they felt more listened to

than with other GP practices in the city.

Overall, the vast majority of patients

surveyed stated that they did not believe that

the service provided by Homeless

Healthcare Team needed improvement,

which is clear sign of the quality of the

service on offer.

NIcholstown Surgery

In November 2016 HWS worked with

Nicholstown Surgery to undertake a survey

of patients focused on their experience of

booking appointments. We spoke to 30

patients and prepared a report which was

shared with the surgery and the Patient

Participation Group (PPG). It highlighted

that the majority of patients surveyed contact

the surgery by telephone but can find it

difficult to get through and can sometimes

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get cut off. Having got through people we

surveyed were generally satisfied with

explaining their condition over the telephone,

but getting to speak to a member of staff

initially was the main problem. We raised

this with the surgery at their Patient

Participation Group who are aware of the

problem and are working to address this.

Registering with a GP Practice

During a number of Healthwatch outreach

sessions in 2015, individuals and groups

raised with us the issue of not being able to

register at GP practices due to not having

the required photo ID and/or proof of

address. As this was a national issue, we

took the matter to NHS England and other

organisations including the Equalities and

Human Rights Commission. With this effort

new national guidance was put in place.

Following on from this work, Healthwatch

Southampton conducted a ‘mystery shopper’

exercise contacting GP practices (including

branches and the Homeless Healthcare

Team) in Southampton to ask what they

required, if anything, from patients when

registering. Our intention was to discover

what practices had amended their

registration policy to reflect the amended

national guidance.

Although Healthwatch Southampton was

successful in advocating for a change in

national guidance, it’s evident that the

majority of practices in Southampton are

either not aware of the amendment in policy

or have not implemented it. When

telephoning, 71% of practices required some

sort of proof of identification or address

before a patient could be registered. 68% of

practice websites contain outdated content

that mentions requiring proof of identification

or address before a patient could be

registered.

Although practices are allowed to request

proof of address and/or photo ID, all staff

must be made aware that they should not

refuse registration if a patient cannot or will

not provide ID. Healthwatch Southampton

recommends that all practice staff including

doctors and front-of-house staff need to

receive training to reflect the amended

national guidance that came into effect in

November 2015 which states that::

We are concerned that by asking for

identification some patients may be

incorrectly assuming that it is compulsory to

provide identification when it is not. This

could result in vulnerable individuals being

excluded from receiving the care that they

are entitled to. HWS is now working with

Wessex Local Medical Committee (LMC), to

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design training to practices around this

issue.

PPG Network

Through our work we realised there were

discrepancies’ in how GP Patient

Participation Groups (PPG) were operated.

We therefore undertook an audit of PPGs so

we could better understand the landscape.

Some primary care service providers were

running regular PPG meetings, others had

yearly online forums or surveys and some

service providers had no form of PPG at all.

Healthwatch Southampton believes it would

be beneficial to form a PPG network, which

links PPGs across Southampton. Following

discussions with Southampton City Clinical

Commissioning Group (SCCCG) we are

planning to work in partnership to form a

network that will aid in sharing best practice,

provide peer-to-peer support and enable the

gathering of patient opinion across the city.

Follow up on the closure of Bitterne

Walk-in-Centre

Last year we reported on the consultation

process leading to the closure of the Bitterne

walk-in-centre. We stated that we would

examine the effect of this closure carefully

and raise any concerns with the CCG.

Approximately a year after its closure, we

asked the Acute Trust for attendance figures

at the Emergency Department broken down

by postcode. We were obviously concerned

to see if the closure had resulted in more

patients from the East of the City using ED

because of the closure. The figures

demonstrated very clearly that there had

been no increase in attendance at the ED.

We also asked for attendance figures at the

Minor Injuries unit. These show a very

significant increase of patients using the

minor injuries unit both for minor injuries but

also for minor illnesses.

The conclusion from these two sets of

figures is that Patients are making good use

of the minor injuries unit and there is no

increase in the use of ED.

Young People’s Survey

Over the summer of 2016 Healthwatch

Southampton worked with a team of young

people taking part in the National Citizenship

Scheme (NCS) to co-produce a health

questionnaire. We felt that the voice of

young people was not being heard enough

within health and social care and the

questionnaire offered an opportunity to

address this. Working with the NCS

Volunteers we surveyed over 150 young

people aged mostly 16 and 17.

The results show that the young people

surveyed identify stress is as the main thing

preventing them from being healthy.

Combined with this young people highlight

the need for better access and

improvements to mental health services.

The replies relating to mental health stand

out from this questionnaire and Healthwatch

Southampton would therefore recommend

that mental health services locally look at

their provision for young people in

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Southampton, in particular to 16-17 year

olds.

With high levels of stress being reported by

young people this clearly is a significant

health problem which is perhaps under-

recognised. As such, we would also

recommend that further research is carried

out which focusses on stress in young

people and looks at the causes and ways in

which it can be reduced.

The report has been shared locally with

commissioners and providers of young

people’s services, to feed into the design of

future service provision.

Young People’s Sexual Health Survey

In February 2017 Healthwatch Southampton

attended City College Southampton’s LGBT

and Sexual Health Awareness Event. As

part of that event, we conducted a survey,

asking 24 students between the ages of 16-

19 to self-assess their level of education of

sexual health, who they’d contact for help

and advice about sexual health and whether

they’d ever experienced unwanted sexual

activity of some kind.

Young people surveyed said that they would

primarily contact their GP for help and

advice about sexual health, followed by the

GUM clinic and family. Over half of

respondents said that their level of sexual

health education is good but a third said

their sexual health education was ok, low or

very low. 9 young people out of 24 had

experienced unwanted sexual activity of

some kind which demonstrates that this is

an important issue that needs greater

awareness and research to ensure support

is available.

Of those who had reported unwanted sexual

activity, two young people had not then let

someone know or reported this. On the day

they were directed to the PIPPA (Prevention,

Intervention and Public Protection Alliance)

stand which is an alliance group of specialist

sexual and domestic violence services in

Southampton, working to end domestic and

sexual violence and abuse.

Southampton General Hospital -

University Hospitals Southampton

Foundation Trust (UHS FT)

University Hospital Southampton Foundation

Trust is responsible for the Southampton

General; Hospital which is a major Regional

teaching and research hospital and accepts

patients from a very wide area including the

Chanel Islands and even the Falkland

Islands. The population covered for

specialist services is approximately 3.7

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million. With a staff of about 10,500 they

treat some 150,000 in-patients and day

patients per annum. In addition it is

responsible for the Princess Anne Hospital

which is a centre of excellence for maternity

care and a regional centre for foetal and

maternal medicine; the New Forest Birthing

Centre and the Countess Mountbatten

Hospice, a regional NHS palliative care

service.

Last year we reported on the ‘Clinical

Accreditation Scheme’, which involves lay

members, including Healthwatch members,

in assessing the care provided in an

individual ward or outpatient clinic.

Members of the team make an

unannounced visit to the Ward/clinic and

using a pre-set template evaluate the ward

using a process known as the ‘fifteen-step

challenge’, or ‘understanding quality from a

patient’s perspective’. This is followed by a

formal interview with senior members of the

ward/department who are required to

produce statistics and evidence across a

range of issues. Although not Enter and

View, the feedback from these inspections is

just as valuable. Healthwatch can suggest

an inspection of a given ward or department

and the evidence is used to support our

case for improved service. Any serious

concerns are raised directly with the Director

of Nursing and/or the Medical Director.

In December, we conducted a survey of

patients at the hospital and found a very

high degree of satisfaction but with 3 issues

that patients and visitors told us required

improvement:

Car parking

Smoking near the main entrance

State of some public toilets

These issues were raised with the

management and as a result the

management acknowledged the difficulties

with car parking and although increased car

parking is planned to open later this year,

they undertook several additional significant

changes to improve the situation in the short

term: Greater emphasis has now been

placed in directing patients to the designated

smoking shelters and staff have been

reminded of the Trust’s non-smoking policy:

Improvements have been made to the toilets

near the entrance and notices have been

displayed directing people to alternative

facilities.

Do Not Attempt Cardio Pulmonary

Resuscitation (DNACPR)

Healthwatch Southampton questioned

University Hospitals Southampton NHS

Foundation Trust (UHS) about its policy and

practice in relation to ‘Do Not Attempt Cardio

Pulmonary Resuscitation’ (DNACPR). We

also undertook a survey with our members

about DNACPR.

Our survey showed very clearly that the

majority of respondents favoured a

discussion on DNACPR occurring at the

earliest opportunity with several suggesting

that GPs could be more involved thus

limiting the incidence of discussion at a

critical stage. UHS agreed this was an

important point and undertook to make this

view more widely known with consultants

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and to consider how this view could be

better incorporated into future training

programmes.

Improving the experience of patients with

sensory disability

Last year we reported on cooperation with

UHS on a project to implement the

Accessible Information Standard for people

with sensory impairment. Great progress

has been made and an ‘assistance required’

card is to be widely advertised and made

available to all hospital patients that have a

sensory impairment. On production of this

card the hospital will log the assistance

required on the patient’s medical records

and provide the assistance needed. The

card will also serve if a patient needs an

interpreter. We have helped the Trust

develop a policy for assistance dogs

including the provision of a dedicated space

for the dog to relieve itself. We conducted

an audit of the available hearing loops in the

hospitals run by the Trust and concluded

that there were insufficient and some of

those that were installed were either not

working or were not understood by staff

responsible for them. As a result of the

report, the Deputy Director of estates was

tasked with producing an action plan to

rectify the situation. Healthwatch was

consulted on its content and has been

invited to monitor progress. Part of the plan

includes the decision to install a hearing loop

whenever an area is refurbished.

We have continued to inspect the number

and quality of patient information leaflets to

ensure that essential patient information is

readily available and not lost in a plethora of

other less important information. The Trust

had agreed that patients who require it can

have leaflets in a colour and typeface

suitable for those with sight loss. Several

leaflets can now be made available in Braille

and alternative languages.

Royal South Hants

Healthwatch Southampton spent a day at

Royal South Hants Hospital in November

2016. We were there to promote

Healthwatch and engage with the public

around experiences of health services. We

asked people two questions:

How is your experience of the health

services at the RSH today?

Is there anything you would like to see

improved?

Feedback was very positive on the whole,

although a couple of issues were raised,

including regret at the loss of the Healthy

Bite Cafe, and the parking machine not

taking the new £5 notes. This information

was passed onto the Site Services Manager

and the GU clinic was informed about the

request for a drop-in service.

Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust

The media was full of adverse stories about

the perceived failings of Southern Health

NHS FT following a damning report from

Mazars into the deaths of people with a

Learning Disability or Mental Health problem

in contact with them. They also had a

warning notice from the CQC.

Southern Health NHS FT runs inpatient

acute service providing treatment and care

for people who have severe mental illness

and need their treatment delivered in an

inpatient setting in Southampton at Antelope

House.

Naturally, Healthwatch Southampton was

extremely concerned and requested an

urgent meeting with its management. In

order to maximise the value of the meeting

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we presented the Trust with a number of

searching questions and comments prior to

the meeting. The meeting was attended by

Julie Dawes who had just taken up the post

of Interim Chief Executive following the

decision of the previous Chief Executive to

stand down. She was accompanied by the

Director of Operations, mental health,

learning disability and social care; the Area

Manager Southampton, Adult Mental Health;

and the Communications manager. The

meeting was very candid and the

representatives of the Trust were very frank

in their response. It was clear that the new

Chief Executive had grasped the urgency of

the situation. Reassured by the responses

from the Trust management, Healthwatch

Southampton made it clear that, although

being critical of recent events at Southern

Health, we needed them to succeed and

would act as a critical friend to do what we

could to improve services within

Southampton and where appropriate help

them to restore public confidence. The

previous Chief Executive resigned two days

after this meeting.

One of the unfortunate consequences of this

adverse publicity was that the Trust

struggled to recruit and retain trained nurses

to the extent that they were concerned that

they could no longer sustain a safe

environment for the Psychiatric Intensive

Care Unit at Antelope House. This implied

moving patients to another facility in London

not run by Southern Health. Healthwatch

Southampton were consulted and sought

assurances that any closure would be

temporary, that Southern Health would

maintain continuity of care of patients and

that patient relatives would receive help to

visit. Having received these assurances,

Healthwatch Southampton supported the

decision on the grounds of patient safety.

We are pleased to report that following a

restructuring of staff, the unit at

Southampton has now re-opened. Whilst

there is still room for improvement, we were

also pleased that a subsequent inspection

by the CQC removed the warning notice and

gave Southern Health an overall rating of

‘requires improvement’ with ‘caring’ and

‘responsive’ rated as good.

Throughout its work Healthwatch

Southampton works closely with a variety of

organisations. This includes local

commissioning through Southampton City

Council and Southampton City Clinical

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Commissioning Group, local NHS trusts and

private sector organisations involved in the

delivery of services, Social Care services,

Public Health, and a vast range of voluntary,

community and social enterprise

organisations as discussed elsewhere in this

report.Healthwatch Southampton has

collaborated with neighbouring local

Healthwatches across the Wessex footprint

and NHS England (Wessex) to form

“Wessex Voices”, which is enabling patients

and the public to get involved in

commissioning undertaken by NHS England,

and to feed into strategy being developed by

Wessex Clinical Senate. We are looking

forward to building on our successes over

the next year.

Through the Healthwatch Network we have

been able to feed back issues of concern to

Healthwatch England, who can monitor

issues from the network at a national level.

In particular we have communicated our

concerns around barriers to accessing GP

care by registration policies which ask for

two forms of ID, including photo ID. The

Wessex local Healthwatches hold regular

meetings with our Healthwatch England

contact, where we are able to discuss issues

that are affecting the Wessex region, and

gain a better understanding of the impact of

national policy decisions. This has been

particularly helpful in preparing our

responses to the development of the

Sustainability and Transformation Plans

(STP). We continue to have a working

relationship with our local CQC

representatives, who invite our feedback

when undertaking inspections of local health

and care provision. By being included in

Quality Summits with local trusts post

inspection we are better able to understand

the issues raised through inspections and

the steps that are being taken to improve the

quality of services. This relationship also

enables us to represent the views of the

public and patients.

A key relationship we have formed over the

last two years has been with the Wessex

Local Medical Committees (LMC). LMCs act

as the support and advisory body to GP

practices, and their assistance in tackling the

issues around registering at a GP practice

has been invaluable.

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How we’ve worked with our

community

Healthwatch Southampton’s Strategic Group

is made up of local people who are elected

to represent the public and local voluntary

and community sector organisations. The

Strategic Group set the priorities for HWS,

with input from the public.

As well as guiding the direction of HWS, the

Strategic Group take on specific roles in

acting as leads within key areas of the local

health and care system. This includes

representation onto the Health Overview and

Scrutiny Panel (HOSP), linking with the

CCG, where we have a non-voting

representative on the CCG Board, linking

with the main NHS trusts and the Social

Care.

Strategic Group members are supported by

HWS Chair and staff to have input into these

structures. The healthwatch manager is

currently the HWS representative, with

voting rights, on the Southampton Health

and Wellbeing Board.

Healthwatch Southampton involves

volunteers in all aspects of its delivery. This

includes our community outreach team, a

media tracker, website volunteer and admin

and data entry.

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Following engagement work Healthwatch

Southampton became aware that many local

people were unhappy about the mental

health services they were receiving in

Southampton. Coupled with this people felt

they weren’t being listened to about the

design and delivery of local services.

We spoke to our membership about this

issue and through this the HWS Strategic

Group decided it should be one of our

priorities to find out more about the

experiences of this group of people.

Healthwatch Southampton went on to work

closely with the University of Southampton

to co-produce a piece of qualitative research

exploring people’s experiences of living in

Southampton with a mental health problem.

The work was guided by a steering group

that included people with lived experience

and their carers, as well as other local

stakeholders.

The research findings highlighted an over

reliance on medication, poor choice

concerning talking therapies, and a criticism

of the medical model of mental health. In

terms of recovery participants emphasised

the importance of occupation, in terms of

employment, volunteering and hobbies.

HWS was successful in securing a grant

from NHS England to produce a short

animated film, developed with a student from

London Metropolitan University, to highlight

the themes raised through the research.

Research participants were involved in a

series of workshops to shape the films

narrative and messages. Direct quotes were

taken from the interview transcripts to

powerfully illustrate the research themes.

This research is feeding into the local

commissioning of mental health services,

and HWS are subsequently working with

service users to develop a model of service

user representation to ensure their voices

are listened to in the local decision making

process in future.

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Following extensive public consultation and

a priority setting exercise led by the HWS

Strategic Group using a weighted priority

setting matrix we have set the following

areas of priority:

Mental Health Services

Primary Care – GP Services

Social Care Services

Integration and Transformation (golden

thread)

Whilst HWS has undertaken considerable

work concerning the first two priorities, as

outlined in this report, we are now setting a

programme of work for Social Care, which

will be reported on next year.

Given the level of change within health and

care services, the HWS Strategic Group also

set a fourth priority, or “golden thread”, of

Integration and Transformation. Our plan

over the next period is to work closely with

commissioners and health and care

providers to ensure that public engagement

and communication is successful in the

transformation agenda.

As stated in the Chair’s introduction, we

believe that in order for this to happen a

shared narrative needs to be developed with

the public, to better understand the

pressures facing the care system, and to

lend context to any changes in service

delivery that are being designed.

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Healthwatch Southampton 23

Healthwatch Southampton Strategic Group

comprises of volunteer elected members

from both the public and voluntary sector

membership. Elections are held each year,

prior to the AGM, with 2/3rd of the

members standing down. Two further

members are appointed to make up skills

and equalities mix, with a final member

appointed by Southampton Voluntary

Services (SVS) as a link to the overarching

organisational governance of the contract

holding organisation. The election and

appointments of HWS Strategic Group is

overseen by an Independent Nominations

Committee, ensuring independence and

transparency in the election and selection

process.

HWS Strategic Group oversee the strategic

priority setting for each future period.

Priorities are set following extensive public

engagement. Decisions are made using a

weighted, priority matrix that enables the

members to analysis where HWS efforts are

best placed and therefore gain the

maximum impact with the resources

available.

The HWS Strategic Group meets monthly,

rotating between informal meetings and

meetings held in public.

Harry Dymond, MBE – Chairperson and

Public Member

Jo Ash, CBE - SVS Member

Paula Barnes – Skills and Equalities

Steve Beal – VCS

Anno Cato – Public Member

Lesley Gilder – Public Member

Annabel Hodgson - VCS

Jane Barnes

Graham Hunt

Matthew King

Sally Yan

Connor Burgg

Irene Warrican

Rob Kurn - Manager

Sam Goold – Community Engagement

Worker (left 2/6/17)

Ben Grace – Digital Engagement Worker

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Healthwatch Southampton 24

Income £

Funding received from local authority to deliver local

Healthwatch statutory activities £125,000

Funding received from local authority to deliver

Independent Health Complaints Advocacy £50,000

Wessex Voices £1,277

Community Grant £1,000

Total income £177,277

Expenditure

Healthwatch operational costs £44,817

Healthwatch staffing costs £90,483

Healthwatch office costs £24,560

Total expenditure for delivery of Healthwatch statutory

activities £159,860

seAp subcontract to deliver Independent Health

Complaints Advocacy £50,000

Total combined expenditure £209,860

Reserves BFWD £88,458

Reserves CFWD £55,873

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Healthwatch Southampton 25

Healthwatch Southampton

Southampton Voluntary Services

Kingsland Square

Southampton

SO14 1NW

Get in touch

Phone number: 02380216018

Email:[email protected]

Website:Healthwatchsouthampton.co.uk

Twitter: @HWSouthampton

seAp Southampton

Oasis The Venue,

Arundel Street,

Portsmouth

PO1 1NP

Southampton Citizens Advice

3 Kings Park Road

Southampton

Hampshire

SO15 2AT

We will be making this annual report publicly available on 30 June 2017 by publishing it on our

website and sharing it with Healthwatch England, CQC, NHS England, Clinical Commissioning

Group/s, Overview and Scrutiny Committee/s, and our local authority.

We confirm that we are using the Healthwatch Trademark (which covers the logo and

Healthwatch brand) when undertaking work on our statutory activities as covered by the

licence agreement.

If you require this report in an alternative format please contact us at the address above.

© Copyright Healthwatch Southampton, 2017

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Healthwatch Southampton 26

Healthwatch Southampton

Southampton Voluntary Services

Kingsland Square

Southampton

SO14 1NW

w: www.healthwatchsouthampton.co.uk

t:02380216018

e:[email protected]

tw: @HWSouthampton

fb: facebook.com/SouthamptonHW