Healthwatch Lambeth

Objectives and activitiesObjects and aimsHealthwatch is the independent champion for local people’s voices in Health and Social Care in Lambeth. We work to ensure people’s experiences of care count when it comes to shaping and improving services. We seek to challenge inequalities in health and care, to help ensure everyone gets the services they need.Our charitable objects are to advance the health and the relief of those in need by reasons of youth, age, ill health, disability or financial hardship in the London Borough of Lambeth by:1. Making the views and experiences of the citizens of Lambeth known to health and social care providers and drawing on citizens’ needs, involvement and aspiration whether users or not of health and social care services.2. Enabling local people to have a voice in the development, delivery and equality of access to local health and care services and facilities.3. Providing training and the development of skills for volunteers and the wider community in understanding, scrutinising, reviewing and monitoring local health and care services and facilities.4. Providing information and signposting to the public about local health and social care services.Public BenefitThe trustees confirm that they have complied with the requirements of section 17 of the Charities Act 2011 to have due regard to the public benefit guidance published by the Charity Commission for England and Wales.During 2021-22, Healthwatch continued to focus on four priorities:1. Older people, including people using social care and, or health services for long term conditions.2. People affected by mental ill-health, particularly people from Lambeth's Black Communities.3. Children and young people.4. People with learning disabilities.The programmes worked to deliver against these priorities by:1. Gathering and analysing the care experiences of local people to provide a valid evidence base of health and social care practice.2. Using this evidence to influence health and social care planning, commissioning, and provision3. Building a culture of partnership and collaboration with local people, communities and other stakeholders.4. Developing new ways to provide high quality, trusted intelligence on people's experiences of services to influence care.Information on our work is also available in our Annual Report, which can be accessed here: https://www.healthwatch.co.ukReview of activities 2021-2022HWL’s activities in 2021-2022 included:Improved mental health support for young people as they move from child and adolescent mental health services to adult mental health services as a result of our involvement.Improved emotional and psychological support for young people attending hospital through our work.Supported the borough’s efforts to increase uptake of annual health checks and the COVID-19 vaccine amongst people with learning disabilities, autism, and severe mental illness.Promoted and supported maternity services at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to directly involve women and families in developing a new maternity strategyStarted a new programme with health service colleagues at South East London CCG and Lambeth Together to make sure decisions taken by Primary Care Networks take full account of patients' perspectives and experiences.Through HWL’s signposting service and information events HWL have: Helped people to get services such as advocacy and community mental health servicesHelped people resolve issues such as concern about Covid-19 vaccination and housing difficultiesImproved people’s knowledge and understanding of the different ways to improve their physical and mental wellbeing.During the year, despite the difficulties of the pandemic more than 700 people shared their experiences of health and social care services with HWL helping to raise awareness of issues and improve care. Over 160 people came to HWL for clear advice and information about topics such as mental health and COVID-19.HWL undertook three projects aimed at improving people’s experience of health and social care services:Worked with Lambeth Together to improve the experience of people moving from child to adult mental health servicesCreated a new local partnership to improve access to information about annual health checks for people with disabilitiesSupported the Adult Safeguarding Board to make improvements to the way that they consider the views of service usersKey projects in 2021-2022:Improving mental health support for CYPAs a result of feedback HWL received from young people about the challenges they face moving between children and adult mental health services, the Living Well Network Alliance of Lambeth Together recruited transition workers to ensure that support is better coordinated and that services are responsive to their needs.Young people often find the move from child to adult mental health services difficult and some disengage from services completely. Not all young people struggling with their mental health will need specialist services at the time of transition, but they all need some support to prepare them for independence and adulthood.HWL spoke to 19 young people with mental health conditions and learning disabilities along with their parents or carers about their support needs as they move to adult services. Young people reported a poor experience of health and social care including:Difficulties talking to someone within the systemUncoordinated supportLack of training to build their resilience.HWL also found that some young people disengaged from services due to unclear referral processes. Young people told us that they needed:Proper planning and transition supportAccess to better information on services Help to build resilience.HWL presented these findings to the Living Well Network Alliance (LWNA) which is the collaborative group of statutory and voluntary mental health and care services in Lambeth. As a result, they recruited staff to coordinate support for young people moving from child to adult mental health services. HWL hope this will improve young people's experiences of moving across services. HWL will follow up to check that this is the case.Improving uptake of Annual Health Checks and the COVID-19 vaccineFeedback from people and carers with learning disabilities, autism and severe mental illness helped HWL improve the borough’s knowledge of the barriers to uptake, and informed plans to ensure people from these groups can access the support they need.This year HWL contributed to the borough’s efforts to improve uptake of the Annual Health Checks (AHC) and COVID-19 vaccine among people with learning disabilities, autism and severe mental illness. The borough has adopted some of HWL’s recommended strategies for improving access, including providing education and information about the AHC and the COVID-19 vaccine alongside other health campaigns. HWL spoke to people from these groups, along with their parent/carers about AHCs and the COVID-19 vaccine to explore their views and access experiences in depth.Findings included:There is variation in knowledge and understanding of the purpose of an AHC, what it entails and beliefs about entitlementFamily members and carers play a key role in giving people opportunities to access care, including booking appointmentsPeople have different understanding of the risks associated with COVID-19Family members and carers play a key role in supporting people to access care, correcting misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine and are the key motivating factor influencing decisions about uptake.Health professionals told HWL that:Misinformation about the vaccine communicated on social media was a strong factor in people’s decisions about whether to get vaccinatedThere were public concerns about the period that was left to test the vaccines before they were rolled out, and there were misunderstandings about the level of protection the vaccine provided.People had different understanding of the risks associated with COVID-19HWL presented its findings to representatives of Lambeth Council and NHS South East London CCG (Lambeth) and at the Learning Disability and Mental Health Vaccine Uptake Working Group. HWL’s findings have informed and contributed to the borough’s efforts to improve uptake among these groups. These included providing education and information about the AHC and the COVID-19 vaccine along with other health campaigns. HWL also encouraged the council to work more closely with grassroots community and voluntary organisations that reach people from these groups.Some of the key differences HWL’s activities made in 2021/2022:Improving emotional support for young people attending hospitalAs a result of a HWL consultation with a young people’s reference group on their experiences of attending hospital, King’s College Hospital and Child Health Services have been working on improving care for young people with emotional health needs.This led to King's College Hospital appointing a consultant psychologist to develop the psychology services for children and young people with general paediatric conditions who need additional emotional support and developed training to help doctors manage young people who are very psychiatrically unwell, along with a programme to support people with mental health concerns better and is reviewing the resources available outside Child Mental Health Services (CAMHS) so that GPs, child health leads and paediatricians have better information about appropriate local support to meet children’s needs.“All this was started by what we heard from children and young people during the [HWL] consultation.” Lucy Pickard Sullivan (Consultant paediatrician - King’s College Hospital)Supporting maternity services to involve women and families in new maternity strategyHWL’s strategy is to actively promote, encourage and support service providers and commissioners to directly involve the public in shaping how services are designed, monitored, and improved. Building on women’s stories of their maternity care during COVID-19, HWL worked closely with King’s College Hospital to directly involve women in the first stage of developing their maternity services vision and strategy.HWL helped to design a consultation survey and supported the hospital to share it with local community groups and more widely with a diverse group of women who had experience of using King’s Maternity services. A total of 170 women participated in the consultation and King’s College Hospital are now using the results to shape the strategy and other maternity projects.Improving care over time: Supporting public engagement in primary care servicesHWL often work behind the scenes with health and care services to consistently raise issues and push for changes. HWL heard patients’ feedback on their experiences of accessing GP services and our volunteers and staff reviewed the accessibility of information on GP websites. This highlighted the need for stronger community communications about service availability and appointment booking. HWL’s insight has also led to a new opportunity for HWL to work closely with partners at the South East London CCG.In 2022, HWL will be embarking on a new programme to support Lambeth Primary Care Networks (PCNs) to develop greater insight from patient engagement, testing new ways to bring the patient experience into decision making processes.Advice and informationThis year HWL helped people by:Providing information about complaints services and processesProviding up to date information on COVID-19 vaccination and booster programme in the boroughLinking people to reliable information they could trustHelping people to access local advocacy services, community mental health services including Lambeth Talking Therapies and services for older people such as the befriending services offered by Age UK LambethHolding a series of information events focusing on improving wellbeing including World Health Day, Mental Health Awareness, tips to keep in good health, safeguarding information.World Health Day - which included 12 mini workshops on different topics such as gardening, yoga and mindfulness, singing, mental health and managing stress and information about local mental health services.Mental Health Awareness Week was an opportunity for participants to join practical activities to improve their wellbeing and cope with the pandemic. We had sessions on mental health support for young people, boxercise, group coaching, journaling, and meditation and interactive performance from a group of Black men on how they cope with Covid.Tips to keep in good health- aimed to raise awareness and mobilise efforts to support mental health and wellbeing in the community. Our event in October 2021 offered a variety of tips that participants could use as self-care as well as share with anyone who could benefit from. These included writing a fantasy story to distract the mind, to a ‘food and mood’ and physical activity videos. Professionals from the local ‘Lambeth Talking Therapies’ invited people to contact their service if they needed help to tackle anxiety, depression.Volunteering programmeHWL is supported by a team of volunteers who are the heart of its work.. Thanks to their efforts in the community, HWL is able to understand what is working and what needs improving in NHS and social care.This year HWL volunteers have:Helped people have their say from home, carrying out surveys and interviews over the telephone and transcribing interviewsSupported with engagement project planning and the design of evidence gathering toolsCarried out website reviews of all GP practices in Lambeth to assess the information they provide and their accessibilitySupported with strategic review and review of funding opportunitiesRepresented Healthwatch Lambeth at online and face to face meetings and forumsCreated digital content for our website and social media and designed flyers for events and projectsHelped with administrationTook part in training to improve their research skills.