This summary of SYB ICS engagement activity was provided to partner CCGs for their annual reports covering the period April 2018-April 2019. Copy for the period April 2019-April 2020 will be provided in April 2020.
In 2018-19 the ICS involved patients, the public, staff and stakeholders on the Hospital Services Review, NHS 111 procurement, over the counter medicines and ophthalmology services and transport and travel with regard to accessing services. The Citizens’ Panel continued to develop with members offering feedback on engagement planning and direct involvement in working groups.
Hospital Services Review
In August 2017 the ICS commenced a piece of work looking at hospital services in the region. Patient, public and clinical involvement was key to this work. A number of methods were employed in order to discuss with and gather the thoughts of staff, stakeholders, patients and the public to help inform the independent report. The engagement which took place during the review included: public events; an online survey, which was made available in an easy ready version; paper surveys at a range of events, by request and in hospital out-patient department waiting areas, main entrances, and areas convenient for staff; a telephone survey with 1000 members of the public who were selected to be as representative as possible of the demographic makeup of South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw; discussions with the Youth Forum of Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust; discussions with GP Practice Patient Participation Networks ; sessions with a wide selection of seldom heard groups including: young mothers, asylum seekers and refugees, members of ESOL (non-english speaking) groups, members of the deaf and mute community, Pakistani and Somali women, members of the Roma community, members of the LGBT community, young people’s groups, elderly people’s groups, recovering addicts, current drug and alcohol addicts, members of a support group for people with physical and/ or mental health conditions, and young people from the autistic community.
Findings from the engagement that took place before May 2018 can be found here:
https://bit.ly/2U3M0pY and https://bit.ly/2IwOqMg
Recommendations from the review, which were published in a report (including an easy read version) in May 2018, proposed that to continue providing high quality services, hospitals in Barnsley, Bassetlaw, Chesterfield, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield must work together even more closely in a variety of different ways. This included ways for the hospitals to work together better with the development of hosted networks. It also included transforming the way we use our workforce, to make the best use of the staff we have at the moment, and to ensure that people receive care as close to their own homes as possible. The report, which can be found here: https://bit.ly/2U3M0pY details how patient and public involvement has influenced the report findings.
Following the publication of the Hospital Services Review report on the 9th May 2018 (and subsequent easy read version of the report), the partners involved in the HSR were invited to consider their response to the Review and its recommendations. Stakeholders including patients and the public were invited to respond with their views on the full report by 12th July.
The specific written responses to the Hospital Services Review final report have been included in Annex A of the Strategic Outline Case and have, along with the wide range of public views collected during 2017-18, helped to shape the drafting of the Strategic Outline Case. The public feedback received, as well as the review team’s response, is detailed in Annex A of the Strategic Outline Case, which can be found on our website here: https://bit.ly/2Nm0r5X .
In order to ensure patients and the public were given enough time to give their responses, engagement did not cease on the 12th July and continued until the end of September. In recognition of the length and complexity of the Hospital Services Review Report materials which highlight the recommendations and key points in the report, and an accompanying easy-read survey were developed.
At this stage engagement was carried out with over 400 patients, the public, staff and stakeholders, again using range of methods to gather peoples’ views. Face to face workshops were held with organisations and groups of people including Sheffield Futures young people’s groups, the prisons service, SAVTE (charity for people for whom English isn’t a first language), mother and baby groups, dementia groups, groups for people with physical and mental disabilities, groups for vulnerable women, groups for people with alcohol dependencies, people from a traveller background, asylum seekers, ROMA communities, children and families affected by deprivation, carers, young carers, victims of domestic violence, sex workers, people who live in isolated rural communities, deaf community and armed forces/veterans. Survey responses on the review recommendations were also obtained from workplaces including Stagecoach, South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue, Distinction Doors Ltd Barnsley, GP practices, Patient Participation Group Network meetings and National Citizenship Service events. Work was also carried out to communicate to wider audiences at public events such as NHS 70th Birthday celebrations, Annual General Meetings of NHS organisations, Sheffield University Health and Social Care nursing students lecture. Flyers were handed out and conversations held at local events and leaflets were also sent to local community centres and libraries. A report on this stage of the engagement can be found here: https://bit.ly/2XgSoMu
In January 2019 focus groups with pregnant women, new mothers and groups most affected by gastroenterology conditions were conducted to help understand what is most important to the population, in particular current or recent service users, should there be any reconfiguration of services. The report is currently being pulled together and will be given to the maternity, paediatric and gastroenterology workstream leads to inform their thinking and development of business cases, should the decision be made to further explore potential reconfigurations in these services.
Citizen’s Panel
In January 2018 the ICS launched a Citizens’ Panel in recognition that as its work develops, it is vital that the voice of local people is at the heart of what it does. The Panel brings together people from across South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw to provider an independent view and critical friendship on matters relating to the work of the Integrated Care System. There are currently 13 volunteers who sit on the Panel with all areas of the region represented. The Citizen’s Panel has been speaking to different communities about the Hospital Services Review, contributed to the 569 million reasons medicines campaign shared their views on the orthopaedics pathway for hip and knee replacements as well as the NHS 111 procurement.
Transport and Travel Panel
Following the formulation of the recommendations from the Hospital Services Review a transport panel comprising of patients and members of the public from each area of South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw was set up in November 2018. The panel looks at the potential impact changes to services would have on patients, the public, carers and families with regard to travel including testing journey times where possible to provide realistic insight into the impact of any service change. The panel looks at how to improve transport and travel planning and infrastructure around NHS services.
NHS 111/ Integrated Urgent Care Service Procurement
The Citizen’s Panel has also taken a role in the procurement of a £17.6 million contract which will see the Yorkshire Ambulance Service provide an Integrated Urgent Care Service to the people of Yorkshire and the Humber. The Yorkshire Ambulance Service will continue to provide the NHS 111 call handling service which provides patients with core clinical advice but now patients will benefit from a number of enhancements. The new enhanced service has been procured in partnership by Yorkshire and Humber’s CCGs and will commence in April 2019. The Citizen’s Panel were involved throughout this procurement work providing the patient representative voice.
Long Term Plan
The NHS Long Term Plan was published by NHS England in January 2019 and sets out how the NHS will improve the quality of patient care and health outcomes. It also explains how the £20.5 billion budget settlement for the NHS, announced by the Prime Minister in summer 2018, will be spent over the next 5 years.
The South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Integrated Care System (ICS) has been tasked with working with their local partners to develop their local response by producing an ICS five-year strategic plan by the Autumn of 2019. As an essential part of this process wide engagement with health and care staff, patients, the public and other stakeholders across South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw about the ambitions the Long Term Plan sets out, as well as the process by which we will translate it into local action is underway.
Discovery Days
In November 2018 the ICS worked with NHS England and all South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw partners to develop a co-designed communications and engagement approach. In January 2019 the organisations came together again to develop a co-designed action plan for clinical engagement and leadership.