Healthwatch City of London October newsletter
Chat from the Chair
Welcome to our October newsletter. Working on your behalf and keeping you up to date is something we take very seriously here at Healthwatch City of London. With a number of events and activities going on you are able to both receive the latest news and air your views to those who plan and deliver your care.
Highlights include; our Patient Panel with the NHS Cancer Alliance who presented on the cancer screening programme across North East London, more about this below, the launch of the London Ambulance Service Strategy; you’ll remember we sought your views on this back in January, and finally, we carried out an Enter and View at Goodman’s field medical centre along with our colleagues in Healthwatch Tower Hamlets, you can read all about these events below.
Our upcoming AGM with Ian Thomas, the CEO of the City of London Corporation will give you the opportunity to pose your questions on the future of Health and Social Care in the City of London as he sets out the next five years for Health and Social Care. We look forward to seeing you there; more details are below.
We were delighted to meet our newly recruited volunteers at our office in Portsoken Community Centre, they have a wealth of knowledge and experience not only as users of services but in some cases through previous study. We look forward to working with them as they help us to help you by exploring a number of areas you are interested in.
There are more events coming up, in particular we’ll be holding a Patient Panel on Weds 8th November with Wayne Douglas from NHS Cancer Alliance who will talk you through the changes to cancer waiting times and the likely impact on you as service users or carers, once again details of how to book are below.
Following your feedback, we are in the process of organising a webinar on the various digital patient portals in use by those responsible for our care. You have told us that you want to know more about how you can access them and how they talk to each other. We’ll have a representative telling us how to use the Patient Knows Best app, which is used at Barts NHS Trust and at the Homerton NHS Trust with information on the NHS app. Watch this space for details of how to book.
Our colleagues at City Connections have launched two social groups this month to promote the health and wellbeing of the community, details are further down in this newsletter.
We do hope that you can join us at our AGM and look forward to seeing you there.
All the best
Gail
Chair, Healthwatch City of London
Breakfast with the Town Clerk
Are you interested in where Health and Social Care in the City is heading for the next five years?
You can ask Ian Thomas himself, the City of London Corporation’s CEO as he shares the City’s plan for the next 5 years. Share your questions, experiences and ideas with him directly.
Join us on the 19th of October from 9:30am, with a 10am start for coffee and pastries in the Barbican at St Giles Cripplegate Church, Fore Street, Barbican.
To join us you can register https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/healthwatch-city-of-london-annual-general-meeting-tickets-687958712027?aff=oddtdtcreator
Our recent Patient Panel: Cancer Screening
Last week we held a Patient Panel on Cancer Screening with Caroline Cook, the Early Diagnosis Programme Lead at the North East London Cancer Alliance. We learnt all about the three NHS Cancer Screening programmes, for Bowel, Breast and Cervical cancers. It was fantastic to see some new faces and some old friends join us and have the opportunity to understand how important preventative cancer screenings are, and how and where to access them.
Breast screening – women aged 50 – 71 are invited for mammograms every 3 years, currently undertaken at Mile End Hospital
Bowel cancer screening – home test kits are posted to your home every two years for men and women aged 54 – 74 (changing to 50 – 74 in 2025)
Cervical cancer screening for women and for people with a cervix (e.g., trans and non-binary) – are invited for a smear test every 3 years for 25 – 49-year-old, decreasing to every 5 years for 50 – 64-year-olds. These take place at your GP Practice or sexual health services,
There was a good conversation around the difference between regular screening and diagnostic testing. For example, breast screening takes place at Mile End hospital whereas diagnostic testing would normally take place at Barts.
It was also asked where people can obtain PSA (bowel cancer) testing kits outside the regular screening timescales. Caroline has kindly passed on the following link that gives further information https://nelca.mypsatests.org.uk/
The most important take away from the session is, cancer screening saves lives, and please attend appointments/take the tests when offered to you.
Our thanks to Caroline for coming along to talk to us.
Upcoming Patient Panels
New Cancer Wait Times Standard and its effect on you
We are pleased to announce that we will be holding a Patient Panel on Wednesday, 8 November for the new cancer waiting times standard and its effects for patients in the City and North East London. From the 1 October 2023, changes have been made to cancer waiting times with the two weeks wait standard being removed and the remaining waiting times standards to be rationalised into three core measures. These core measures include, faster diagnosis standard, a 62 day referral to treatment and 31 day decision to treatment. These new measures may seem confusing and we know that you may have many questions in how this will impact you or your family members, therefore we will be joined by Wayne Douglas, who is the lead for diagnosis and treatment at the NHS North East London Cancer Alliance, who will explain these changes and take any questions you may have. The session will be held in person at the Portsoken Community Centre and you will also be able to join via MS Teams. To register please visit the events page on our website Patient Panel - The new cancer wait times standard and the effect on patients in North East London | Healthwatch Cityoflondon
Digital Apps Webinar
We will also be holding a webinar on the new NHS patient app, Patient Knows Best with a date and time to be announced soon.
If you are interested in attending a Patient Panel on a specific topic or theme in Health and Social Care, please let us know at info@healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk
Meeting our new volunteers
We were very excited to welcome some of our new volunteers at our induction meeting. It was an amazing opportunity to get to know them and explore how they will make an impact on you through supporting a number of projects that we are developing in response to issues you have raised. Look out for more information.
If you are interested in volunteering to help make a difference to Health and Social Care in the City of London while gaining valuable experience please email info@healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk
Flu and COVID Vaccination programme
The flu and COVID vaccination programmes have started across the City and North East London at selected GPs and pharmacies. We know that flu vaccinations are being offered by your GP, and that invitations will for this have been sent via text message and letter, however we have yet to have confirmation on where you can obtain your COVID booster.
Please let us know if you’ve not received an invite, are housebound and haven’t received an invite or if you’ve had to travel a long distance to get your COVID booster. You can let us know by email info@healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk
London Ambulance Service (LAS) Strategy Launch
Last week, one of our Trustees, Lynn Strother, attended the launch of the LAS strategy 2023-2028 which outlines how they plan to achieve outstanding emergency and urgent care.
You’ll remember back in January the LAS commissioned Healthwatch across London to gather the views of members in the community to understand how people feel about LAS services. We have been working with other Healthwatches in North East London to gather this data for our population and those who live, work and study in the City of London.
To read the full strategy, you can visit Our plans for the future - London Ambulance Service NHS Trust
We noted that there is an importance for the LAS to focus on providing education for the public on the different services they provide in order for people to access the care they need.
CPR Training
We are currently organising with the LAS, a training session for the public on CPR and the use of defibrillators. If you are interested in attending this training, please email info@healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk
Enter and View at Goodman’s Fields Medical Centre
On Wednesday 13th September us, along with our colleagues at Healthwatch Tower Hamlets carried our an Enter and View at the Goodman’s Field Medical Centre.
All local Healthwatch have a statutory power to Enter and View, a legal right to visit places that provide publicly funded health or care services, to see and hear how people experience the services.
This gives us the opportunity to:
- Collect the opinions and experiences of people using these services, their carers or relatives.
- Talk to staff who are providing care
- See the nature and quality of services
- Develop insights and make recommendations to improve care.
The centre opened last year incorporating several practices from across Tower Hamlets. It has around 33 thousand patients and is the biggest practice in Tower Hamlets. They estimate that around 600 patients live in the Portsoken area of the City.
The full report from our visit will be published in due course, which we will put on our website.
PLACE based assessments at St Barts NHS Trust
Barts NHS Trust are currently running their Patient-Led Assessment of the Care Environment (PLACE) 2023 programme. They are looking for volunteers to help with these assessments. They will be held on the following dates from 10am – 3.30pm,
St Bartholomew’s Hospital - Tuesday 10th October 2023 & Wednesday 11th October 2023
Royal London Hospital - Tuesday 24th October 2023 & Thursday 26th October 2023
Whipps Cross University Hospital - Tuesday 31st October 2023 & Wednesday 1st November 2023
Full training will be given. Please contact Reza at the Trust on reza.miah1@nhs.net if you are interested. This is a fantastic opportunity for you to see first hand the hospitals and the environment in which care is received.
Once the assessments are completed, we will hold a Patient Panel with St Barts to outline the findings and recommendations that arise.
Would you like to be a Trustee?
Being a Trustee can be really rewarding and being one at Healthwatch allows you to make a real difference in our community. We really do need more people to come forward and help us to make this difference. We have vacancies for new Board Members and Trustees. As a Trustee you will help provide the strategic leadership to deliver our goals as we enter into a renewed contract year.
We are seeking Trustees with skills in:
- Marketing / communications / events
- Public health / community engagement
- Finance / governance
- Knowledge of/experience of SEND or disability
This voluntary role requires a minimum time commitment of a day a month. For further information please email our Chair, Gail Beer, on gail@healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk
Celebrating World Mental Health Day
Join City Connections in celebrating World Mental Health Day with a relaxing hybrid tea, talk and a chance to do some breathwork and meditation.
All residents, carers and cared-for are welcome.
It will be on Tuesday the 10th October from 11am to 12pm in the Sir Ralph Perring Room, Golden Lane Sport and Fitness, Fann Street Barbican, or you can join online via zoom.
Meeting ID: 834 3086 0797
Contact Gow for more information: 07414670270 or gow@cityconnections.org.uk
Have your say on how local funding should be spent
Have your say on how funding should be spent to improve your local area and the activities on offer. By completing the Neighbourhood Fund Survey you can share your views and help shape the priorities of local grant funding across the City of London.
Each year the City of London’s Community Infrastructure Levy Neighbourhood Fund distributes over £2M in grants across the Square Mile. The fund’s primary focus is to provide neighbourhood infrastructure and community benefit for those who live and work within the City of London. The Neighbourhood Fund supports an extremely broad range of capital projects and community activities. From providing children’s workshops during school holidays, to supporting arts and health activities for young families both locally in community centres and at City-wide festivals. From improving the City’s green spaces for users and wildlife, to encouraging cycling through the provision of safe, secure cycle parking. From adapting buildings to reduce noise pollution, to animating public spaces through art designed for and with young residents.
The City of London Corporation would like to hear your views, access the link here: bit.ly/47wakXw
Helping Patients with Travel Costs
Getting to your hospital appointments can often be burdened by high travel costs which can make attending your appointments inaccessible. Barts Health has announced that patients can access reimbursement for their travel costs, including ULEZ charges.
Patients who are eligible to receive help with hospital travel costs can now make their claim in person, by post and by emailing the cashier’s team.
To check to see whether you’re eligible, visit https://www.bartshealth.nhs.uk/news/helping-patients-with-travel-costs-15691
Connect with other women with the Portsoken Women’s Group
You can meet other women and promote your health and wellbeing with the Portsoken Women’s Group. Each week the group meets for activities at the Portsoken Community Centre, 20 Little Somerset St, London E1 8AH.
This month you can join every Wednesday from 10:30am to 12:30pm for a Chair Exercise class and every second Wednesday, there will Crochet or Embroidery.
If you have any questions you can contact Gow at ph. 07514670270 or via email gow@cityconnections.org.uk
Join the new Mansell Street Mens group
City Connections are holding a mens groups in the City, you can join Carlos and Rafael at the City Mens group where you can connect with other men in your community, share stories all while playing some table tennis!
There is no need to sign up, just show up every first and third week of each month from 12pm – 1pm at the Portsoken Community Centre, 20 Little Somerset St, London E1 8AH.
For more information you can contact Gow at ph. 07514670270 or via email gow@cityconnections.org.uk
Free online parenting courses from Early Help
The City of London Early Help Service are offering an online parenting course to parents and carers with children from three to 18 years old.
Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities (SFSC) is a universal programme that will provide you with skills and techniques to help with parenting challenges. It will also give you the opportunity to meeting other parents in the City and share your experiences. The course will run weekly for four weeks online and is free to attend.
For more information, you can visit Free online parenting course from Early Help - City of London
Smoke Free City and Hackney
Smokefree City & Hackney now run a drop-in clinic from Room 9, Guildhall North Wing in the City of London from 10am to 1pm every Thursday.
The clinic is open to all who live, work or study in the Square Mile or who have a GP in the City or Hackney. The service offers a 12-week course with advice and guidance to help you quit and can also offer nicotine replacements.
To use the service, you can either call ahead and book a session on 0800 046 9946 or you can drop in on the day.
Keep up to date with the latest advice
HWCoL are constantly updating our advice and information pages. Please make sure you visit them regularly. https://www.healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk/advice-and-information
Get in touch with us
Visit our website for more information, news, and events, have your say about your care, and spread the word about Healthwatch City of London.
www.healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk email: info@healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk Tel: 020 3745 9563 Facebook: facebook.com/CoLHealthwatch Twitter: @HealthwatchCoL
Portsoken Health and Community Centre, 20 Little Somerset Street, London E1 8A
