Local Involvement Network (LINk) Annual Report
Barrie Towse, Cheshire East LINk Chair and Neil Garbett, Team Leader of the LINk support team, will present the Annual Report.
Copies of the Annual Report are enclosed.
Minutes:
Barrie Towse, Chair of the Cheshire East Local Involvement Network (LINk), presented the Annual Report.
The report outlined the structure and membership of the LINk and detailed the work carried out over the year, including:
Enter and View – the LINk had a statutory right to Enter and
View Health and Social Care facilities to ensure that they complied
with essential standards set by the Care Quality
Commission. A number of such visits had
been undertaken including a number of unannounced visits, including
to 2 Emergency Departments, 1 Elderly Care Ward (which had been
unannounced) and to 2 Learning Disability facilities. The notice when undertaking visits was anything up
to 15 days. It was sometimes helpful to
give a short period of notice as this would enable the manager to
make sure they were available;
The Mental Health Sub Group had undertaken work with CWP, the
provider trust, and been involved with a number of consultations on
service changes;
Hospital discharges and readmissions – the LINk had listened
to patient experiences and sought views on the local
radio. Discussions had been held with
both Acute Trusts on discharges and readmissions, and the East
Cheshire Hospital Trust had introduced Patient’s Passport to
try to identify those at risk of readmission;
Communications – a Sub Group had been formed to look at
improving communications and had commissioned an advertising
campaign on the local radio as well as reviewing the website;
Social Care – work in this area had included a one day
conference at Crewe Alexandra Football Club on Demystifying
Personalisation which had been attended by over 100 delegates;
following the success of this event, 2 workshop events had been
held in Knutsford and Congleton.
The LINk had developed constructive relationships with a number of partners through Joint Liaison Meetings which were seen as a successful initiative; these were monthly meetings with representation from a wide variety of organisations including the Primary Care Trust, GP Consortia, Council for Voluntary Services and Local Authority. The LINk attended the Overview and Scrutiny Committee meetings and representatives welcomed the opportunity to contribute.
Neil Garbett, the Support Team Leader, explained the role of the Support Team. The role had been refocused due to staff changes and close working arrangements had been developed with a number of organisations. Training had been held for members especially in relation to Enter and View. The LINk had also applied for Pathfinder Status and was waiting to hear the outcome. There was still uncertainty around future funding. Lucia Scally explained that there was uncertainty from central Government around the future funding of Healthwatch but some transitional funding had been made available from the Adult Social Care budget.
Members discussed the Annual report and made the following points:
The LINk were to be congratulated on their work and their report
which was an excellent in-house production;
The hard work of the LINk members, who were all volunteers, was to
be commended;
It was suggested that a short introduction to the Report on
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