Question
With respect to agenda item 43, can I add my thanks and also the thanks from the residents of Arborfield to the agenda item on page 26 Appendix A - Responses - Examples Of Where Services Worked Particularly Well, page 10
My question is with respect to agenda page 27 Appendix B - Responses - Where Services Could Have Worked Better, page 11; is there a formal action plan designed to look at how these issues can be improved?
Minutes:
Question
With respect to agenda item 43, can I add my thanks and also the thanks from the residents of Arborfield to the agenda item on page 26 Appendix A - Responses - Examples Of Where Services Worked Particularly Well, page 10
My question is with respect to agenda page 27 Appendix B - Responses - Where Services Could Have Worked Better, page 11; is there a formal action plan designed to look at how these issues can be improved?
Answer
The survey that fed into the report was carried out during the first wave of the pandemic when a lot of change were happening very quickly, and services had to adapt. The report was shared with the Clinical Commissioning Group and Wokingham Borough Council. The list of 'Where services could have worked better' was a summary of all the responses we received in our survey, primarily because the majority of the responses fell into the following categories.
1. The primary issue related to service providers communication, information and advice. This included timeliness, clarity, difficulties finding information and advice. Survey results and other feedback highlighted Hospital, GPs and Dentists although other service providers were mentioned.
2. There were issues relating to service changes and access e.g., phlebotomy, dentistry.
3. Issues relating to pharmacies and prescriptions.
Healthwatch Wokingham Borough made some recommendations in the report one of which related to the primary issue of communication and information.
Based on the feedback, Healthwatch Wokingham Borough did the following:
1. With our colleagues from Healthwatch Reading and West Berkshire we had regular discussions during the pandemic with CCG and Royal Berkshire Hospital comms teams. We raised the issues we had been hearing about the difficulty residents had in getting easy to find, clear, timely information from the hospital website. Issues relating to finding 'easy read' information for those with a learning disability and information in different languages. We also gave examples of websites that worked well e.g., Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust.
2. Additionally, we gave examples where we thought service providers regular bulletins for patients, residents worked well, namely Frimley Health Covid Response Weekly Update and Wokingham Borough Council Weekly Situation Report. Royal Berkshire Hospital Trust informed us that there were plans to rebuild their website and that those plans would be brought forward. We have been given the opportunity to feed our comments into that project, have met with the team and will be meeting them this month for an update. We have been receiving more regular communications from the Hospital Trust and regular bulletins and press releases.
3. Based on survey results and other feedback we instigated two projects.
a. One to look at the information on GP surgery websites in Wokingham and one to look at information on dental websites in Wokingham. The GP surgery website report was shared with the CCG, they agreed to implement all six recommendations we made on all GP surgery websites across West Berkshire.
b. The dental report and recommendations were shared with the local Dental Council. We received the following response "Alas I have no jurisdiction over the websites of the individual dental practices.... but I will highlight the problem. I did do some research of my own across various random practices and found that the information was variable and sometimes difficult to find.
What I will do is highlight it with the practices and nudge them in the direction of keeping their sites up to date". Access to NHS dental treatment is a big issue nationally, we have fed our local intelligence into Healthwatch England who have just released a report on the national situation and are in dialogue with NHS England.
4. With regard to the issues around pharmacies and prescriptions, we discussed this with the Thames Valley Local Pharmaceutical Committee and the issues early on in the pandemic appear to have been resolved.