Agenda item - Formal Member Involvement

5.1       The Chair noted that David Liley had submitted a question on behalf of Healthwatch and invited him to put it to the Board:

"Healthwatch understand that the NHS have decided to cease funding for the 'Take Home and Settle' service provided by the Red Cross in Brighton and Hove including the food parcel service that provides essential supplies to vulnerable people on discharge from hospital. Healthwatch also understands that this decision involved no consultation with service users, their families and carers. There seems to be an emerging pattern of NHS investment and disinvestment decisions being made with no reference to the people who use the services, or this Health and Wellbeing Board.

What assurance can the NHS give that patient and public voices will influence this decision and other similar decisions."

5.2       The Chair responded:

“The decision to not extend this pilot service was made following six months of engagement between clinicians, GPs, commissioners, providers and stakeholders. However, we recognise we could have done more to actively involve potential service users within this engagement. We are acutely aware and fully committed to our duty to involve, engage and inform service users, their families and carers in decisions that we make where appropriate and over the last year we have put significant focus, time and resources into looking at improving how we can do this. Along with the local authority, the CCG carried out the most intense period of public engagement we have ever done during a six month period last year as part of the Big Health and Care Conversation and we are currently looking at how we can build on this and embed ways of working that better involve patients, the public, carers and stakeholders in our work. As part of this, we are developing a clear communications and engagement approach to any difficult decisions that we may have to make in the future about services and we will be able to share this widely soon.”

5.3       As his supplementary question David Liley asked the Council and CCG to provide assurances that future decisions on service changes will only be taken after meaningful engagement with a range of stakeholders including service users and potential service users rather than a consultation focused on professionals.

5.4       The Chair invited Chris Clark to respond. He stated that the CCG recognised that it needed to involve patients and patient experts in decisions in a meaningful way and that they were committed to doing this. In the case of the ‘take home and settle’ programme more should have been done to consult service users. Chris Clark also stated that there were ongoing discussions with the ‘take home and settle’ provider around potentially retaining aspects of the service.