Engagement Blog

This week, we are using technology to reach out to our GPs and Practice Managers, linking them in more closely to what is happening in our area.

Using a webinar system, GP practices can directly link in with us having a two way conversation about what is happening in our local healthcare.

This week, we had updates from our Clinical Accountable Officer, Sarah O'Brien, Our Lead Nurse for Adult Safeguarding, Helen Newton and our Interim Head of Primary Care, Karen Leverett.

It is a new idea which is already proving to be a great way to engage with our primary care community.

We have also attended the Suicide Memorial event on Wednesday evening, which was a fantastic and moving event. We met some inspirational people and have also learned that the prevalence of suicide in St Helens is really high, especially amongst men of all ages. Some of the new people we met and things we learned will now also be getting involved in and used in our Talkfest Mental Health event in April. 

Date: February 19th 2018

Spring is in the air and last week we certainly had a lot to talk about!

We have been working hard on planning for our next Talkfest Spring event, which is taking place on Thursday 26th April 2018. This will be focused around the topic of mental health, talking with local community groups, work places, schools and colleges about mental health issues and services available in St Helens. Plans with our Public Health, Healthwatch and Voluntary colleges are underway to plan in workshops, information sessions and drop ins all to get people talking about mental health. We also want to hear from you if know any groups who might want to get involved and talk to us about mental health services or experiences.

We are keen to spread messages about Mental Health services and promote great campaigns like 'Stamp out Stigma' on this day, so if you have any ideas about how we can get as many people in the area talking about Mental Health on April 26th 2018, please get in touch.

I have also been out and about across St Helens working with the 'Clinical reference group' as part of St Helens Cares. This is a group where all of the leads across the St Helens Cares programme shares learnings and talks to each other giving updates on the work we are all doing to deliver better health and social care. I updated the group on the engagement work happening in the CCG such as A&E and GP extended hours which link into key work streams such as 'Front Door' and 'Primary Care'.

We also went and talked with our local ADHD group about what NHS services are available for them and how they can use them. Talking with them also meant we could learn from some of their experiences of services and feedback to our teams. 

Check in next week to read more about how our Talkfest plans are going and some more about our GP engagement plans.

Date: March 23rd 2018

During May we celebrated national nurses day, as part of this the team worked with the quality team and held a local event. The event was to celebrate the work of nurses across the borough and what they contribute to the local community. Invites were sent out to all nurses across a range of settings, Community, Primary Care, Acute, Mental Health, Learning Disabilities, Local Hospice, infection control, continuing healthcare nurses.  As part of the event our Chief Nurse, Lisa Ellis talked about the vital role nurses play and thanked gave thanks for their dedication, Sarah O’ Brien then talked though comments received from patients on how thankful they are for what they do. Awards were also given out to nurses across a number of categories as recognition of their hard work.

Also during May a number of workshops have taken place which I have attended, these include healthy weight and alcohol the workshops looked at how we can work together on these key areas and how best to communicate and engage with the local community.

The team have a survey out at the minute looking at capturing peoples experiences of accessing the Walk in Centre locally, these experience will be collated and will support the commissioning team in the development of a specification for an urgent care treatment centre later in the year.

Date: May 14th 2018

Another busy month in June for the team. At the start of the month I attended the 'Making the right choice' event which was organsied by Healthwatch St Helens. The aim of the event was to promote local services and when to use them and what to expect. I presented on behalf of the CCG talking about what services are available in primary care and who you could expect to see when accessing them. The event was a huge success and was attended by over 100 members of the local community as well as third sector, voluntary orgnisations and Health Professionals. We hope that this event helped to raise awareness of where the right places to go for care are in St Helens and that those who attended would share the messages. 

I also spent some time at the local Autism and Asperger Society talking to service leads as well as service users around future work of the CCG and how they can get involved and have their say.

During this month the team have spent a lot of time planning for our next Talkfest event as well as planning for the NHS 70 birthday and our AGM which will all take place in July. For more information or book a place please visit https://www.sthelensccg.nhs.uk/get-involved/annual-general-meeting-agm/ or call 01744 624269

Finally, a representative from the Alzheimer’s society ran a dementia friends training session for staff. The session provided staff with information to transform the way the people think, act and talk about dementia and how it affects people. All staff then made a pledge on what they can do on a daily basis to support people living with dementia. For more information on becoming a dementia friend please follow this link. https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/get-involved/dementia-friendly-communities/dementia-friends

Date: June 21st 2018

On Thursday 5^th July the NHS celebrated its 70^th Birthday, to mark this occasion locally the NHS St Helens CCG held a number of events as part of our Talkfest along with holding our Annual General Meeting.

During the week the team attended a number of locations including St Helens Hospital and Asda Supermarket asking local community members what they think the NHS will look like in the future and to also make a pledge on how they will support the NHS going forward, for example: I will – look after myself, I will – use the right services at the right time, I will – be as independent as possible in managing my healthcare. During the events the CCG engaged with approximately 600 people face to face with 244 making pledges.  

Alongside this, NHS St Helens CCG also held a community talkfest workshop. Members of the community who attended were asked to tell us what’s happening within their communities and how they can support us going forward along with identifying challenges. 34 members of the community attended the event as well as representation from third sector and voluntary organisations.

Following on from the workshop attendees stayed and joined us for our Annual General Meeting along with local councillors, partners, MPs, third sector and voluntary representatives as well as nursing students and pupils from Cowley International High School choir who opened and closed the meeting. In total approximately 120 were in attendance for the AGM to hear updates from Geoffrey Appleton – Lay Chair, Sarah O’Brien – Strategic Director People's Services / Clinical Accountable Officer and Iain Stoddart – Chief Finance Officer. Delegates from Stuttgart were also  in attendance to mark the 70 year anniversary of the twinning of the two towns.

The week came to an end on Saturday 7 July when the CCG attended the Food and Drink festival, the festival was set up to celebrate the 150 anniversary of St Helens.

During September the team supported two local campaigns, Know your Type (KYT) and Atrial Fibrillation campaigns. Firstly the KYT campaign was a joint campaign in partnership with NHS blood and transplant. The aim of the campaign was to raise local awareness of becoming a blood donor and provide the opportunity for people to have a simple test to find out what their blood type is. During the week we had over 40 people adding themselves to the register to give blood and finding out what blood type they are. The CCG will continue to work with the blood and transplant service to carry out a similar campaign with a local workplace.
 
The second campaign was in partnership with the Innovation Agency and was aimed at testing as many people as possible to identify if they are living with Atrial Fibrillation, the team held a number of drop in session during the week to capture as many people as possible, during the week over 540 people were tested. Atrial fibrillation is a heart condition that causes an irregular and often abnormally fast heart rate. A normal heart rate should be regular and between 60 and 100 beats a minute when you're resting. In atrial fibrillation, the heart rate is irregular and can sometimes be very fast. In some cases, it can be considerably higher than 100 beats a minute, this can cause problems e.g. dizziness, shortness of breath and tiredness. You may be aware of noticeable heart palpitations, where your heart feels like it's pounding, fluttering or beating irregularly, often for a few seconds or, in some cases, a few minutes however sometimes atrial fibrillation does not cause any symptoms and a person who has it is completely unaware that their heart rate is irregular. You can find out more about the symptoms of atrial fibrillation here.

We also held our Patient Experience an Involvement Group (PEIG) meeting, this group is made up of representation from the CCG, Local Authority, Public Health, Health watch, VCA and Patient Rep. The PEIG is a sub group which reports directly to the CCG Quality & Performance Committee, in line with the quality strategy. The group supports and advises on borough-wide engagement, consultation and communication activity and initiatives relevant to the delivery of the CCG Commissioning Strategy and St Helens Health and Well-being Strategy for more information on this group or how to get involved with the work of the CCG.

During October following on from the Know Your Type campaign in September, the team again worked with NHS Blood and Transplant and the Co-op Distribution Centre to run an internal campaign to raise awareness of becoming a blood donor and provided the opportunity for people to have a simple test to find out what blood type are.
 
The team have also worked closely with medicines management colleagues and council colleagues to support the launch and delivery of the national antibiotic awareness campaign. The aim of the campaign is to reduce inappropriate prescriptions for antibiotics, more information can be found here.

Also launched in October was our flu vaccination campaign. This campaign is aimed at encouraging those people at greatest risk from flu to protect themselves and their loved ones, more information can be found here.
 
Our Patient Experience and Involvement Group (PEIG) meeting also took place again. This group is made up of representation from the CCG, Local Authority, Public Health, Health watch, VCA and Patient Rep. The PEIG is a sub group which reports directly to the CCG Quality & Performance Committee, in line with the quality strategy. The group supports and advises on borough-wide engagement, consultation and communication activity and initiatives relevant to the delivery of the CCG commissioning strategy and St Helens Health and Well-being Strategy click here for more information on this group or how to get involved with the work of the CCG.
 
During the coming months the CCG will running a number of engagement events within the local community, we would like as many people to get involved in the events and come along and have their say.

In November our Community Talkfest events took place, which built on the work already carried out by the CCG over the last 12 months. In July a commitment was made to develop Talkfest events and ensure they reach the four localities in St Helens so that all communities had the same opportunity to get involved and have their say. The focus was to provide an update on the changes to health and social care (St Helens Cares), the development of the shared care record and a promotion around self-care as the events took place during self-care week. A summary report from the Community Talkfest Events will be  presented to the senior St Helens Cares team and also shared with the community through the CCG website.

Looking ahead to the new year, the next Talkfest events will take place in January with the theme of 'New Year, New You' as well as any new developments on the work of St Helens Cares. More information about these events and how to book a place will be circulated soon.

Also in November, we held a couple of Maternity listening events aimed at parents to come along and share experiences of local maternity services in St Helens.This work will continue into the new year. If you would like to share your experiences of maternity services please contact the team on engagement@sthelensccg.nhs.uk

All engagement opportunities are promoted through the CCG website. If you would like more information on any of the opportunities or would like to get involved please do not hesitate to contact me.