Lynn Cawley, Chief Officer, Healthwatch Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin

The Board received the report of the Chief Officer, Shropshire Healthwatch – copy attached to the signed Minutes – which set out patient experiences when calling for an ambulance in an emergency.  The Chief Officer thanked the Board for the opportunity to bring this report before them and she also thanked all the people who shared their experiences.  She gave a presentation (copy of slides attached to the signed Minutes) which covered the following areas:

·         What we did and why

·         Who we heard from

·         Where they lived

·         Themes of experiences

·         Positive comments

·         Sample negative comments

·         Response from and Actions Taken by the ICS

·         Response from Healthwatch England

The Chief Officer informed the Board what they did and why, how it was promoted, and the number of responses received.  Of the 168 responses received, 103 of those experiences happened between October 2021 and September 2022.  She reported that there was a large degree of positive feedback, particularly around staffing and the paramedics along with some very strong and powerful negative experiences, particularly where the loss of a loved one had been as a result of some delay across the system, and she gave some examples.

She was aware of the amount of work being undertaken within the ICS to try to address these challenges and had heard from the Chief Medical Officer about the complexity of the situation and the impact it was having on primary, community, secondary and social care and how as a system everyone was working together to try to resolve those challenges.

Going forward, in relation to Shropshire Community Health Trust, the Chief Officer stated that they would like to be involved in any work around getting feedback on the virtual wards, work being done to support care homes and people with mental health challenges, and she described the three pillars of improvement work currently being focussed upon by the ICS.  Finally, she described the conversation that had since happened as a result of the report.

The Chair thanked the Chief Officer for the report and the work that had gone into it and recognised the work that was taking place to improve the issues.  It was felt that the information contained within the report was vital and a brief discussion ensued around the issues raised.

The Head of Service – Joint Partnerships expanded on the point made around the falls pathway and the direct action as a result of the report being presented to a ShIPP meeting which was really positive and when some funding was received to deal with falls the system was ready to go with it and also addressed prevention of falls.

It was agreed to invite the Fire Service to future meetings so that they could become a part of the conversation.

The Executive Director of Health, Wellbeing and Prevention highlighted the work being done by Members through both the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee and the Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee whereby a task and finish group had been set up to look at some of these issues and some really important findings had come out of the group which would be helpful for the Board to look at.

The Chief Officer thanked the Board for their comments which would be included in the Annual Report of Shropshire Healthwatch and she commented that they had been very much supported by WMAS with this piece of work and she felt there was a piece of work to be done around communications and highlighting the availability of ambulances and that if you call one, you will get one.

RESOLVED:

·         to note the content of the report;

·         to note the responses from the providers and to give their support in holding system partners to account for the work they are doing to address the issue of ambulance delays and its impact.