The Stakeholder Reference Forum (SRF) is established to build and sustain meaningful engagement with people across all communities within St Helens, enabling them to have a voice in improving their health and in shaping services as part of St Helens Cares. As such, the SRF will play a key role in providing feedback to the St Helens Cares Provider Board and the St Helens Cares Executive Board, as well as other governance groups within St Helens Cares, on proposals for service change.
This Forum will be made up of patients, service users and carers, and representatives from groups and organisations that represent them or that have an interest in this area. They will offer their perspectives on how St Helens Cares can inform and engage with people on its programmes of work.
Due to Covid-19 the meeting in April wasn't able to take place however Mark managed to provide a video update for all members which can be viewed below.
This meeting summarised further progress on the Place Strategy, making use of the Plan on a Page highlighting the range of themes and areas of focus for each specific theme.
Members were asked to seek feedback from the groups they represent to allow a review of all comments to inform the final draft submission.
The second part of the meeting provided an introduction to the Provider Board frailty work stream. A consultant from St Helens and Knowsley NHS Teaching Hospital talked through the frailty model and how the forum can support the promotion of this service going forward.
The second meeting opened with a recap on key areas of discussion from the development session, to enable new members to understand the role of the forum and expectations of them as forum members.
The Director of Transformation updated on how the plan is progressing. A group activity was undertaken focusing on sections of the plan looking to gain feedback and what improvements should be made. Members were tasked with sharing information with groups / organisations they represent to capture wider feedback from the local community to further support the development of the plan.
A key message from the Forum was the sequencing of information presented in the plan and demonstrating the importance of community engagement in the development of the plan.
A demonstration of the St Helens Cares website and the stakeholder forum chat room design was shared. Forum members will be issued with a username and password to support continued engagement and conversation in between the formal meetings.
A detailed overview was provided of St Helens Cares, what it is and what it means for the local community, the presentation also covered who’s involved and localities. The briefing included output from St Helens Cares work programme to date, for example the Shared Care Record and Contact Cares.
The provider system lead arrangements and governance structure was explained to advise members on how the forum fits into the wider decision making framework to support St Helens Cares.
What’s happening elsewhere?
NHS England presented an overview of some of the issues facing the NHS nationally as well highlighting the NHS long term plan. The presentation also looked at the system architecture for integrated care systems:
Neighbourhood
Place
System and Region
This looked at the working levels of each layer of the system and how decisions are made at each of those levels. The presenter focused on the importance of public, patient, third sector and voluntary involvement in this work and how other areas have set up forums similar to the stakeholder forum to ensure the community are fully involved and able to have their say and support work going forward.
The Development of the St Helens Place Strategy
Following the presentation from NHS England an update was provided on what’s happening locally, the provider board priorities and CCG transformational programme for the borough. The audience was informed of the plan to develop St Helens Place Strategy and the role of the Forum in supporting the development of this.
Group work
The audience considered the following questions:
What role do you see yourself playing in this forum?
What support do you need from us?
How can you communicate the work on the place plan to your groups and networks to support the engagement in its development?
The feedback was used to support the forum going forward.