Strategic partner updates November 2015

Wed,28 October 2015
News

Health and Social Care update from our work as Strategic Partner (SP) to the Department of Health, NHS England and Public Health England

Disability Rights UK heads up a user-led consortium as one of 22 strategic partners in the voluntary sector. Our name is ‘Win-Win Alliance – disabled people leading change’ (WWA). This programme is commissioned by our system partners, the Department of Health, NHS England and Public Health England. As strategic partner we are well placed to raise particular challenges facing our members of disabled people’s user-led organisations. We also ensure that information and opportunities to engage with system partners reach our members through this and other updates, forums, meetings and discussions, and we regularly inform about funding opportunities (which you may pursue with or without Disability Rights UK). This month we particularly invite our members’ contributions to a new research & development project on ‘user-driven commissioning. For any comments and/or ideas about how to strengthen ‘disabled people leading change’, please get in touch with Bernd.Sass@disabilityrightsuk.org 

With some support of the Strategic Partnership Programme and an ESRC grant we want to focus on ‘what makes change happen?’ The special thing about this initiative is that it has both development and research elements – so we can help make things better and then study the impact that this is having. If we co-produce projects, can we disabled people have a positive impact on professionals and on what they are doing? How does this happen?

Maybe your DPULO is already involved with the local Clinical Commissioning Group or Adult Social Care department – say on co-producing experience and outcome measures that would be written into provider contracts to determine (to an extent) the payment of these providers. Or peer support is really about to take off from a well resourced and supported basis in your local area?

If you would like to work with us on any such projects in the future or simply showcase what you have done, please get in touch with Bernd Sass at Disability Rights UK bernd.sass@disabilityrightsuk.org . Or call him directly on 07906 521536. www.Disability RightsUK.org has initiated user-driven commissioning, a tried and tested approach to translate lived experience, risk and protective factors in care pathways into metrics of experience and outcome measures (alongside further co-produced stages of commissioning and procurement) with a view to create a more directly accountable, user-owned and effective landscape of services and support.

One of our members recently replied: "You have given me lots of food for thought. I will do some initial thinking and explore some ideas with our ILS Coordinator and with my Integrated Personal Commissioning colleagues." See also our quarterly highlights! 

Call for Advisory Group members and blog: getting things changed

Getting Things Changed’ is a new research study about tackling disabling practices. It is based at Norah Fry Research Centre at the University of Bristol and involves key partners including Disability Rights UK (DR UK). Our three year research study started in April 2015, and is funded by the Economic and Social Science Research Council (ESRC) in the UK.

The study responds to the widespread concerns about the problems faced by disabled people, in many different areas of our lives. There is often a gap between policy and practice, and we aim to understand more about social practices, so that we know about how to shift and change them to include disabled people.

The study actively involves disabled people within the research, particularly in our own DR UK own strand (5) on user-driven commissioning, as previously reported here.

There are five empirical strands in the research, and they are brought together through workshops, and other forms of ongoing communication, to discuss ideas and theories about change, and how they apply to the research evidence, and each of the strands has some intervention work built into the research at different points. 

We are about to form an Advisory Group for the whole research project. The first meeting will be on 23 November in London. Please get in touch with Bernd Bernd.Sass@disabilityrightsuk.org if you are interested to come along and become a member. If you leave a telephone number, we can talk about this beforehand.   

To kick off our co-production work with statutory partners, we have written a blog which you may want to comment on: https://gettingthingschanged.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/co-production-and-user-driven-commissioning-bernd-sass-disability-rights-uk/

CQC publishes State of Care report

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published its annual analysis of the quality of health and adult social care in England. This is the first time such a national assessment has been possible following CQC’s introduction of a tough, rigorous ratings system.

Key findings include:

  • Despite increasingly challenging circumstances, the majority of services across health and social care have been rated as good, with some rated outstanding
  • However, there is significant variation in quality -  and safety continues to be the biggest  concern across all the sectors that CQC regulates
  • Strong leadership and collaboration is emerging as more crucial than ever to delivering good care
  • Evidence increasingly shows that CQC’s work is leading to improvements in care

The number of services rated as either good or outstanding by CQC suggests most people are receiving safe, effective care.

The report can be read in full at www.cqc.org.uk/stateofcare.

LGB&T People and Mental Health - Resources for practitioners and service users

Research consistently finds that lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGB&T) people experience higher rates of mental health problems than other groups. Additionally, LGB&T people often do not feel able to be open about their gender and/or sexual identities with health professionals, and some still sadly experience discrimination from services or practitioners.

The LGB&T Partnership have developed two resources guide practitioners and service users on mental health issues. The first is as booklet entitled LGB&T People and Mental Health - Guidance for Services and Practitioners which aims to provide the basic information needed about gender identity and sexuality, and the needs of LGB&T people in relation to mental health, including clear lists of good practice when working with LGB&T people, which can be implemented in services and by practitioners.

The second is a fact sheet entitled LGB&T Mental Health - Seeking Support which provides information to LGB&T people who may be seeking mental health support.

Both resources can be found on the LGBT partnership website, here.

If you would like to help inform future work please take the opportunity to complete a short survey to evaluate these resources. 

Collaborative work leads to new mental health services passport for children and young people

Children and young people, with their parents, have worked with NHS England to develop and launch a template of a passport-style brief which summarises their use of mental health services. The Mental Health Services Passport will help them tell their story when moving between different services, and avoid having to repeat their history and preferences to different people. The passport includes clinical information as well as key personal preferences, and should be created by the service user with the support of their practitioner. Watch a video guide created by young people on how to use the passport.

Would you like to be involved in helping NHS Choices develop a new healthcare comparison website?

NHS Choices is conducting research to support the development of their website My NHS https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/performance/search This is aimed at making health and care data more accessible and easy to understand for a range of people in the UK. This is part of a wider objective for improving transparency across the health and care sector.

They are looking for volunteers to get involved and contribute opinions by joining a research panel. Panel members will be sent a link via email to an optional 10-20 minute survey approximately once every two weeks. The surveys will focus on gathering views on site content and information as opposed to behaviour of the new website.

They plan to make a start in November and initially run the programme until April 2016. To express an interest please contact mynhs.feedback@nhs.netmailto:mynhs.feedback@nhs.net

Your contribution is greatly appreciated and they look forward to your involvement. If you do want to contribute to this, please copy us into your initial response cc. bernd.sass@disabilityrightsuk.org , and we are of course happy to discuss any thoughts you may have about this outside the formal channels. 

You can also sign-up to the new monthly My NHS newsletter: 

  • Find out what new data is available
  • Learn about improvements to functionality and appearance
  • Discover who has been talking about My NHS
  • Be the first to know about upcoming changes

Please email mynhs@dh.gsi.gov.uk with your name (and if applicable) organisation to register for the newsletter. 

Antibiotic Guardian Campaign

That antibiotic guardian campaign is being re-launched with a new target for March 2016. The campaign asks people to choose one simple pledge about how they’ll make better use of antibiotics and help save them from becoming obsolete.

Building on the success for 2014, when the campaign met its target of 10,000 Antibiotic Guardians by 30th November, a new goal of 100,000 pledges by 31 March 2016 has been set.

This year the campaign features a new set of resources to support local activities and campaigns as well as an online quiz which can easily be shared via email or via social media www.bit.ly/antibioticquiz. The results of this quiz will be used to help assess awareness on antibiotic resistance across the UK. 

Microsoft 365 and Nonprofit organisations

With the Office 365 Nonprofit donation, qualified nonprofits get Office 365 for free or at a significant discount. Office 365 will reduce costs, increase organisational capacity, and foster better team collaboration, enabling organisations to do more good and create more impact.

To read more, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/about/corporatecitizenship/en-us/office365-for-nonprofits/