Healthwatch City of London Summer newsletter

Chat from our Chair 

Our Health in the City event in collaboration with the Neaman Practice saw nearly 100 local residents turn up to meet us. It gave you the opportunity to come together, meet your neighbours and find out what services you can access locally. A number of health services and community organisations were in attendance, including, NHS Cancer Alliance, Diabetes UK, City Advice, Representatives from the City of London Adult Services and the Children’s team, Mental Health Voice, City Carers Community, Older People’s Reference Group and the Forget Me Not Café.  Dr Chor and Dr Hillier enjoyed meeting many of you in a more relaxed surrounding and we are so grateful to them for helping plan the day. We are all keen to come back next year. We are exploring how we replicate this event in Portsoken, so please look out for more information.    

This month saw the launch of our Annual Report from 2023/24, the report highlights the impact and changes that we have been able to support those delivering and planning our health care to make over the past year. We would like to thank all of you for your support, without your voice and feedback on how services are working we would not be able to have the impact we do.  

Looking forward to our upcoming events, we are pleased to announce our Annual General Meeting with guest speakers, Mary Durcan, Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Board and Dr Mann, Clinical Director for Women’s Health will join us on Friday, 18 October at 10am to 12pm at St Giles, Cripplegate Church. Watch out for further announcements

Back by popular demand is another Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) training session with the London Ambulance Service. Oversubscribed earlier in the year we will be holding a second session in September. We know the difference that CPR makes and it is a valuable skill that the London Ambulance Service is pressing for every Londoner to develop. More details about how to join are down below. 

New to us are our Patient Journey stories, where we share the health journeys of people who live in the City. We explore what it’s like to navigate the NHS and social care, the barriers faced. We hope these stories are able to provide insight into how people are experiencing healthcare and we know it will help us to understand where we need to focus our attention. This newsletter explores one such journey, but we would love to hear from others with similar stories good or maybe not so good.  Sharing your experiences could help others so do get in touch please email us at info@healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk

We are currently scoping out a campaign to support the development of Men’s Health Strategy for North East London; we know that men are less likely to seek help in regards to their physical and mental health and we are seeking to further understand what resources and services in the City need to enable men to seek help. Interested in finding out more? then let us know at info@healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk. 

Finally, if you can please do respond to the national call for blood donations. Read more about this below. 

Over the Summer our team will be taking annual leave, so there may be a slight delay in response to you, as a small team we ensure that all your matters are responded to as soon as possible.

All the best,

Gail

Chair of Healthwatch City of London

Launching our Annual Report 

Healthwatch City of London Annual Report: Your Voice Counts 

Last week we published our Annual Report for 2023/24. The report gives an overview of the impact that we’ve made over the past year, highlights of what we’ve been doing for you, our successes and an overview of our projects and our events.

Our highlights of the year were:

• Holding six Patient Panels, which brought experts and community members together to discuss areas of  concerns regarding Health and Social Care in the City. Topics included Cancer Screening Programmes, the new Cancer Wait Times Standards, Hard of hearing and Deaf Awareness, CPR training, Safeguarding and Medicine Management. 

• Successfully campaigning for accessible services in Foot Health. Through our campaigning we were able to secure the funding for a grant extension from the City of London Corporation to the provider, Hoxton Health who provide the essential nail cutting services at the Neaman Practice, for those who are unable to cut their toe nails.

• We continued to work and collaborate with the Neaman Practice to ensure that your concerns and feedback were heard and responded to.

• Championed your views and brought your insights directly to health and social care providers in the City as well as North East London NHS and the planners of our services

To read our Annual Report, please visit Healthwatch City of London Annual Report 2023-24 | Healthwatch Cityoflondon

Let us know what you think of our Annual Business Plan

This week we launched the consultation on our next annual business plan. We have used our experience and insights for working with you and others to develop objectives that are locally based and designed to make a difference to those of us who live and work here.  You can read the full plan on our website (Consultation of Annual Business Plan 2024 | Healthwatch Cityoflondon) and give us your views using the link below. 

Our top local priorities for the year are as follows: 

1.  Deliver 10 patient panels to inform you about Health and Social care topics that are important to you.
2. Hold a summer information event in June and our AGM in October, both events will give residents important information on local Health and Social Care services and on the work of Healthwatch City of London.  
3. Undertake two research projects – the use of digital applications in Health and Social Care; the extent of Social Isolation in the City. Both of these topics have been raised by residents as concerns.
4. Carry out two Enter and Views – St Bartholomew’s Hospital Cardiology Department and the Neaman Practice. Following feedback from residents on the poor patient communication at the St Batholomew’s cardiology department, HWCOL will carry out an enter and view to report on the provision and to make recommendations for improvement. The Neaman Practice has not been visited for 5 years, therefore HWCoL will carry out a routine enter and view visit to the Practice. 
5. Maintain, train and utilise a dedicated team of volunteers.  To attend focus groups to give the City’s perspective, research and write reports for projects, help with HWCoL events and carry out enter and view visits. 
6. Scrutinise how the City of London Corporation awards and monitors its contracts for Social Care provision. Focus on the patient/resident feedback elements of the contracts. Review feedback from patients via the annual social care survey and analyse safeguarding statistics.  

To give us your views please use this form 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/businessplanconsult2024

The consultation is open until Wednesday 7^th August 2024. 

Join us at our Patient Panel series 

Our Patient Panels are here to give you the information you need on Health and Social Care in the City. We invite in experts that are able to share and highlight important issues in the City that may directly impact you.  We are now planning our Autumn series, so now’s the chance to tell us what you would like to hear about so please reach out at info@healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk

Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training with the London Ambulance Service (LAS)

CPR can be the difference between life and death. The LAS conduct training sessions that will teach you how to carry out CPR, use a defibrillator and to provide basic lifesaving information in order to prepare you for critical situations that can happen on any day. 

After a great CPR training session with the LAS in early March, which was oversubscribed , we are holding another session on Friday 6 September from 10am to 12pm at the Golden Lane Community Centre. 

To sign up, please visit www.healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk/events

If you would like to hear any information on particular topics, please let us know by emailing us at info@healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk

St Bartholomew’s Hospital Cardiology Enter and View 

We recently carried out an Enter and View at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, undertaken as a result of feedback from patients about poor levels of communication in particular in the cardiology department. Ranging from lack of details on appointment letters, including crucial information such as dates, times, or the location of where the appointment is being held we felt we needed to find out the cause of the problems. Patients have also received both a text message and a letter with contrary details with no information on who to call to confirm their appointment. 

On Thursday, 13 June, our team, with a group of volunteers, went to St Bartholomew’s Hospital and directly spoke to both managers and staff who are responsible for the communications and administration of cardiology appointments. This gave us an insight into where the issues in communications may stem from and  to start to formulate some recommendations. We also spoke directly to patients, both in waiting areas and in the wards, which, along with the survey we distributed, highlighted the areas for improvement. We followed up our Enter and View last week at St Bartholomew’s, talking to more cardiology patients in their outpatient’s department. 

The insights into the St Bartholomew’s Cardiology department alongside our recommendations will be published on our website once our report has been finalised.

Meetings we attend for you

You have told us that you’d like to know more about the meetings we attend on your behalf with commissioners and NHS Providers. Please see a summary of three meetings we have recently attended. 

Healthwatch London Network Meeting 

The Healthwatch London Network meeting is organised for all London Healthwatch to get together to share ideas, discuss the problems faced by patients and residents and share best practice. The group covers several Integrated Care areas, we sit in North East London Integrated Care Board. 

This week, we attended the Healthwatch London Network meeting, hosted by Healthwatch Lambeth, creating an opportunity for all Healthwatch in London to come together. We work closely with our local Healthwatch across North East London, collaborating in both projects and Enter and View visits. Attending the Healthwatch London Network meeting was a great opportunity to directly see what Healthwatch across London are making their priorities, what they are currently working on and the impacts they have made for their community. 

Many residents that Healthwatches across London represent are facing similar issues, including access to GP appointments and dentistry services. In particular, one project that Healthwatch Lambeth are currently focusing on are the resources that are available for men with severe mental health issues. We take away these insight and test them out with our own residents to see if they resonate. 

North East London Integrated Care Partnership 

The North East London Integrated Care Partnership Board brings together representatives from the North East London Integrated Care Board, Councillors from the seven Boroughs and the City of London, charitable organisations and Health watch. The Partnership met last week with a special focus on the problem of damp and mould both in temporary and council accommodation. An app is being used in some Boroughs already for Healthcare professionals to report any problems they notice and incorporates the relevant departments to deal with the issue. The City of London Corporation will be looking into the use of the app. Also discussed was Co-Production across the Partnership, some excellent examples of co-production were used, and it was agreed that this approach of working together with service providers and community members to create a shared outcome should be further adopted. 

Following the official Board, we also attended a development session. The session looked at ‘What makes an effective ICP – discussion about our strengths and areas for development and what this means for our work programme and the year ahead’

The overall consensus what that the Governance of the Partnership is good with Marie Gabriel as Chair. Concerns were raised that not all Boroughs were sufficiently represented, with Tower Hamlets being absent from the discussion. It was felt that, as the partnership has only been in place for two years, it was too soon to tell if is effective as long-term plans are still in infancy, however it was noted some of the successes as mentioned in the co-production discussion. 

City of London Health and Wellbeing Board 

This board aims to align the City's approach to the NHS Outcomes Framework, the Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework and the Public Health Outcomes Framework through improving the integration of services - positively influencing the health of everyone who lives and works in the City. At every Board Healthwatch City of London presents a report on both our work and the issues you have told us about. This month  the Neaman Practice and its premises was discussed, it was agreed that the Primary Care Network will assist the Practice in putting together a business case to improve the facilities at  the Practice.  

The Neighbourhood Programme was also a topic for debate.  Concern was expressed that it has been difficult to see the impact of the programmes of  work on the life of those in the  City. We are meeting with representatives from the Programme to discuss  how we can make a greater impact by working together.  If you have had contact  with the Neighbourhood programme it would be good to have your feedback and thoughts  .

City Resident’s Patient Journey

As our chair mentioned above, a resident in the City has shared their journey and experiences of their care from NHS services and the barriers and hurdles they faced throughout to get the diagnosis and treatment they needed. 

The story takes us from how they found out they had contracted the  shingles virus, which caused them to develop deafness and outlined  the health services that they were able to seek treatment and support from. 

By reading their story, the resident hopes that it is able to help prevent people from going through the same experience or provide reassurance for those going through a similar journey. 

To read the full journey, visit A City resident's patient journey | Healthwatch Cityoflondon

How to access your shingles vaccine 

Shingles is a common condition that causes a painful rash. It can sometimes lead to serious problems such as long-lasting pain, hearing loss or blindness. You're more likely to get shingles, and it's more likely to cause serious problems, as you get older or if you have a severely weakened immune system.

It is important if you are turning 65, those aged between 70 and 79 and for people who are aged 50 with a weakened immune system to receive your shingles vaccination.

The shingles vaccine helps to reduce your chances of getting shingles and to reduce your chances of getting serious problems if you do get shingles. If you are not in the age bracket for a shingles vaccination, you should speak to your GP to see if you are able to access it early.

If you are a patient with Goodman’s Field Medical Practice, you can book your appointment via the Dr IQ app, https://eastlondongp.co.uk/appointments/ here or call the Practice at 020 7702 2036

If you are a patient of the Neaman Practice, you can book your online appointment to access your shingles vaccine with the appropriate nurse, or you can phone the reception desk on 020 7600 9740 to arrange your appointment. You can book your online appointment here, Book an Appointment - The Neaman Practice

The Neaman Practice nursing staff will contact patients to inform those who are eligible for the vaccine. If you are wondering when you will be eligible, you can call the practice to enquire. If you think you are eligible and haven’t heard from them, let us know by emailing us at info@healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk

For more information on the shingles vaccination visit: https://www.nhs.uk/vaccinations/shingles-vaccine/

How to book your pneumococcal vaccine 

The pneumococcal vaccine helps protect you against potentially severe bacterial infections such as pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis. If you are aged 65 years and over you can access the vaccine at your GP. 

If you are a patient with Goodman’s Field Medical Practice, you can book your appointment via the Dr IQ app, https://eastlondongp.co.uk/appointments/ or call the Practice at 020 7702 2036

If you are a patient of the Neaman Practice, you can book your online appointment to access your pneumococcal vaccine with the appropriate nurse, or you can phone the reception desk on 020 7600 9740 to arrange your appointment. You can book your online appointment here, Book an Appointment - The Neaman Practice

For more information on the pneumococcal vaccination visit: https://www.nhs.uk/vaccinations/pneumococcal-vaccine/

Pharmacy First Scheme 

Patients can now get treatment for seven common conditions directly from their local pharmacy, without the need for a GP appointment or prescription. This gives patients quick and accessible care, the seven common conditions include sinusitis, sore throat, earache, infected insect bites, impetigo (a bacterial skin infection), shingles and uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTI) in women. 

There are age factors, you do have to be aged 1 year or older to be treated for  impetigo   or an infected insect bite, 18 years and older for shingles, 12 years and older for sinusitis, 5 years and older for a sore throat and between the ages of 16 and 64 for an uncomplicated UTI. 

To access the scheme, you can walk into a pharmacy or contact them virtually to confirm that the pharmacy is a part of the scheme, your GP receptionist, NHS 111, and providers of emergency care will also be able to direct patients to pharmacies.

In the City, we know that you can access the scheme at Portman’s Pharmacy, 5, Cherry Tree Walk, Whitecross Street, London EC1Y 8NX, Chauhan’s Pharmacy, 36 Goswell Rd., Golden Lane Estate, London EC1M 7AA and Boots Pharmacy, 88 Aldgate High St, London, Greater London EC3N 1LH. 

We in the process of identifying if there are other pharmacies with the scheme in place and will update you in our next newsletter.

It is important to note that your usual prescription charges will apply for the seven common conditions and that the scheme includes the two previous elements of the Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS) which is for a minor illness and an urgent supply of a regular medicine. 

North East London Joint Forward Plan 2024 – 2025

The North East London Integrated Care Board have published their Joint Forward Plan. The plan has been refreshed after its initial launch almost two years ago, to address the health needs of the NEL population and to support the health and care workforce. 

North east London is unique. With a rapidly growing population of over two million people, living across seven boroughs and the City of London. It is one of the fastest growing populations in England, and there are pockets of deprivation across the patch. In addition to financial challenges, there is a high demand for urgent and emergency care, and long waiting lists for planned care. 

The Joint Forward Plan goes into detail how north east London health and care organisations will work together to enable you and your family to get the care you need. 

There are 12 priorities of the plan, including urgent and emergency care, operations and tests, cancer, maternity, babies, children and young people, long term conditions, mental health, learning disabilities and autism, employment and workforce, health inequalities and our seven Places. 

The plan ensures focuses on coordination, collaboration and integration between system partners in order to create meaningful impacts.

To read the plan, visit JFP summary document 24-25 Refresh v2.0.pdf

Let us know what you think of the plan by emailing us at info@healthwatchcityoflondon.org.uk we will monitor the plan over the coming year. 

Let the City of London Corporation and health and social care services know what you think of the SEND 2024-2028 strategy. 

The City of London Corporation along with health and social care organisations have drafted their plan to improve services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). 

They want the City to be a place where all children and young people, are safe and feel safe, are healthy, have goals and reach those goals, feel ready to be an adult and for all children and young people to feel welcome in their local area.

The plan outlines five priorities that will improve services for children and young people with SEND  and support their families by getting the right help at the right time, supporting  them when go through change. In addition the strategy  seeks to make  sure people who work with children and young people with SEND have the right skills and training, helping those with SEND feel welcome in their local area and giving those with SEND alternative provision if they need it. 

They want to hear your thoughts, to tell them what you think visit SEND and Alternative Provision Strategy 2024-2028 (office.com)

Staying safe in hot weather 

We’re all looking forward to the warmer weather coming up, however, during a heatwave its important to understand the risks and know to protect yourself and your family. 

During a heatwave, you can be at risk of dehydration, heat exhaustion and heatstroke.

Those most at risk during a heatwave are older people, those who are living on their own or in a care home, those with serious or long-term illnesses, those who find it harder to stay cool, such as babies and small children, those who are bed bound and those with drug or alcohol addictions. 

The best thing to do is, if you can to keep out of the heat. If you have to go outside, its important to stay in the shade, wear sunscreen and sun protective clothes, such as a hat and light clothing. Its also important to drink water and keep your living space cool. 

For more information on how to stay safe during a heatwave visit GOV.UK: Beat the heat: staying safe in hot weather.

Deadpool saves the day but blood donors save lives 

Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman have teamed up to promote becoming a blood donor in order to save lives. Mark Chambers, Director of Donor Experience for NHS Blood and Transplant, said “right now the NHS needs more young people to become the donors of the future. And we urgently need more donors of Black heritage to help patients who need ethnically matched blood’. 

Signing up to become a blood donor is fast and easy and every time you donate blood, your donation saves up to three lives. The NHS needs three lifesaving blood donations each minutes to save lives, especially those fighting cancer, combatting conditions like sickle cell and those who have been in traumatic accidents. 

The current national shortage means that if you can give blood its more important than ever to do so. 

Do you know what blood type you are? There is a particular need for donors who have O negative blood, one of the universal blood types given to all patients in emergency situations. However, all blood types are in demand so please do respond if you can. Locally, you can donate at 26 Margaret Street London W1W 8NB and Westfield Stratford City, London E20 1EJ

To become a blood donor today and book your appointment, visit Sign up to donate - NHS Give Blood