You Said, We Did and Case Studies

You said

"The deaf community sometimes struggle on how to share their experiences of accessing local NHS Services"

We did

We worked with St Helens Deafness Resource Centre and commissioned a BSL video explaining how to share your experiences and feedback with the CCG. 

For more information around the work we do with the Deafness Resource Centre for the community to share their thoughts and vies visit our accessibility page here.

You can view the BSL video promoting our Let's do it together campaign by visiting the Let's do it together page here.

You Said

"We are not aware of some NHS services and how and when to use them"

We Did

Leaflets and flyers have been left with the school to support future promotion of services across the local area such as community pharmacists, walk in centres and 111

You Said

"The NHS should spend more time telling people what services are available and when to use them"

We Did

We worked with schools, colleges, community, third sector and voluntary organisations to run local campaigns on what services are available locally and when to use them.  

You Said

"You wanted enhanced access to a consultant cardiologist"

We Did

Improved rapid access to specialist secondary care support where appropriate to avoid non-elective admissions

You Said

"You wanted more clinics / appointments outside of normal working hours"

We Did

Additional out of hours provision to enable patients who work full time to access services throughout their journey. this service includes some weekend and evening provision of clinics and classes.

You Said 

"The care at the chemist scheme works really well and is a important service to the local community, this service allows members of the public who receive free prescriptions to access medication for certain minor ailments rather than having to make an appointment to see a GP or other health professional"

We Did 

We reviewed all the feedback from the consultation and presented this back to the executive team at the CCG. Once reviewed the decision was to continue with the service in its current format, this outcome was communicated with the local community, groups that had been involved in the consultation as well as Healthwatch. 

For more information on the consultation outcome and care at the chemist scheme, please see below. 

Consultation outcome can be viewed here. 

Care at the Chemist scheme can be viewed here.

You Said

Leaflets and other materials were unclear, outdated and very wordy. This made it difficult for users to understand what to do, who to contact and what services are available.

We did

Together with Public Health and the Local Authority, new materials are being developed based on the feedback given to us from patients, carers and health professionals. This leaflet now provides simple exercises to follow and clear contact details for further help and information. 

You Said

We want to hear more about what's going on at the CCG and also across St Helens.

We Did

We developed a monthly newsletter which is sent to all our members and also uploaded to the website. The newsletter provides up to date information on local and national campaigns as well as engagement opportunities and also includes a monthly blog from the engagement lead. You can read previous copies of our Engage newsletter or if you would like to receive them direct contact us on 01744 627596 or email engagement@sthelensccg.nhs.uk

You said

'Could more events take place within individual localities to ensure the population as a whole have the opportunity to get involved and have their say within their community' 

We did

'When planning events we ensure that they are held in each locality and are fully accessible to the whole community within each location' 

You said

There has been a long delay in relocating patient to Mental Health ward closer to home and family, causing a lot of distress to the patient. Additionally, the patient had not been given a contact of who to speak to.

We did

The CCG provided a single point of contact to co-ordinate patient’s new placement as near to her family as possible and arrange for a Complex Case Mental Health Practitioner visited patient and implement plan to begin relocation.

You said

You are concerned that there might not be enough Stroke beds for St Helens patients if we are taking care of the surrounding areas too

We did

This feedback was shared with the Mid Mersey Stroke board, who are developing clear capacity and staffing models to make sure that there will be enough space for everyone and make sure that the quality of care remains as high as it is now

You Said

Members of the community are not aware of what services are available and how to access them

We Did

We ran a health and wellbeing event within the Town Centre. The Event was a marketplace event with local community groups coming along to showcase who they are, what they do and how the community can access them.

You said

"Could we look at translating our key campaigns into other languages and formats"

We did

We work with our local partners to develop our key campaigns into BSL and Arabic. 

You can view translated documents for our key campaigns below

Let's do it together 

Care at the Chemist

Across England, people from ethnic minorities are generally considered to be at increased risk of poor mental health (Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2016). Some evidence suggests that mental health conditions go unreported and untreated because people in some ethnic minorities are reluctant to engage with mainstream health services (Mental Health Foundation, 2017). To find out more information please see case study

After continuous discussions with St Helens deafness resource centre and Merseyside Society of Deaf People it was clear that complaint systems where inaccessible to BSL users across the services St Helens CCG commissions.

What we did
We co-produced a BSL video with the deafness resource and we ensured that if any BSL user had an issue or experienced a barrier or wanted to provide the CCG with patient experience that they will work with St Helens deafness resource centre who will be that link that allow BSL patients to navigate the health system.

Any key issues will be escalated with the quality committee and healthwatch for triangulation of further investigate.

Over the last two year Serious Case Reviews (SCRs) referenced that lack of diversity as being a contributing factor for poor outcomes. Lack of understanding cultural sensitivity across the NHS both in primary and secondary care have also contributed to a range of poor outcomes for communities who experience poor mental health, such as Deaf people, BAME and the transgender population. To find out more please see the case study. 

Interpreters provide a service for patients, carers and clinicians to help them understand each other when they do not speak the same language. Not being able to communicate well with health professionals can impact on health outcomes, increase the frequency of missed appointments, the effectiveness of consultations and result in poor patient experience and patient safety issues. To find out more see the full case study. 

The Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has worked collaboratively with all NHS service providers and CCGs across Merseyside to implement the EDS2 toolkit in an innovative, integrated and sustained way. The collaboration is made up of equality leads and key officers from across Merseyside and the group meets on a bi-monthly basis. Over the last two years the collaborative has worked closely with a range of stakeholders who represent the interests of people who share protected characteristics or face disadvantages in accessing or working in healthcare services. To find out more please see the case study.

Transgender people experience worse health (both physical and mental) than the general population, which is likely to be substantially due to the direct and indirect effects of the inequality which transgender people experience. This results in multiple admissions across health and wellbeing, this coupled with the fact that numbers of trans patients is small but is increasing rapidly. Local engagement clearly highlighted poor patient experience in relation to the 2 to 3 year waiting lists to access national gender identity clinics and lack of understanding by health professionals in terms of meeting the clinical and health and wellbeing needs of this the population. To find out more information please see case study.