To consider the Healthwatch Windsor, Ascot & Maidenhead 2022-2023 Annual Report.

Reporting officer:

Joanna Dixon – Healthwatch Windsor, Ascot and Maidenhead Engagement and Volunteering Officer

Joanna Dixon, Healthwatch East Berkshire Manager, presented to the Board the Healthwatch Annual Report for 2022/23. Almost 4,000 people had shared their experiences with Healthwatch, which helped to raise awareness of the issues in healthcare. The report highlighted:

• Work done with primary care commissioners to develop information for residents regarding access to local minor injury and walk in services.
• Audited GP websites and called telephone lines in all practices, following this a website template was produced which was offered to all surgeries.
• Report shared with Frimley ICS about patients waiting for hospital treatment.
• Called for an urgent response to hospital waiting lists and better communication, the NHS set out a recovery plan in response to address the backlog.
• Engaged with South Asian unpaid carers about their experience of accessing services, RBWM employed a carers social care practitioner to offer support.
• Healthwatch England continued to lobby for change at a national level.
• The engagement officer spoke with people with various health inequalities including adults with learning disabilities, homeless people, various community support groups, the elderly and children.

Four top priorities had been identified for 2023/24, on primary care, exploring concerns around urgent treatment, the home first project, and the enter and view programme.

The Chair felt that Healthwatch had done a lot of good work and had helped ensure that the community had access to local healthcare. She asked if Healthwatch was a lobbying organisation or was more designed to gather information.

Joanna Dixon explained that lobbying took place more at national level, Healthwatch East Berkshire had a role to flag issues in the local area.

The Chair noted when reading the full annual report, there was a patient who had been off rolled by their GP surgery. The advice that had been given by Healthwatch to the individual was signposting towards how to register with a GP. The Chair considered whether Healthwatch could offer further support and go beyond signposting to information.

Joanna Dixon said that Healthwatch would normally contact the GP practice to understand the context but additional support could be given.

The Chair said that too many people were going straight to A&E for help but it was a struggle to get GP appointments. She wondered whether Healthwatch could campaign on these kind of issues. This could be discussed as part of a future item, considering how to keep people away from A&E and so that usage was only when needed.

Joanna Dixon responded by saying that same day services were a different model of delivering healthcare, Healthwatch would need to receive feedback from local people who had issues with the current service for this to be investigated.

Councillor Werner raised the issue that residents were not contacting Healthwatch because their response could often be dismissive and were passing on information rather than taking action. Councillor Werner suggested that Healthwatch could review how it responded to resident healthcare issues in future to try and gain better outcomes.

Stephen Dunn, Director of System Delivery & Flow and Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead at NHS Frimley, added that NHS Frimley had been listening to local residents by ensuring that access to primary care and A&E was in place in a challenging financial environment.