Agenda item

The Healthwatch Officer (HO) from Healthwatch Barking and Dagenham delivered a presentation on the following three reports that had arisen from key projects undertaken by the organisation during 2020/21:

• ‘Dental Services in Barking & Dagenham during COVID-19’;
• ‘Care Home and Domiciliary Care – Staff Wellbeing during COVID-19’ and
• ‘Community insights on Disabled Residents and the Covid Vaccine in North East London’.

The presentation outlined the context behind each project, its key aims, the methodology and the information gathered.

In response to questions in relation to the ‘Dental Services in Barking & Dagenham during COVID-19’ report, the HO stated that:

• Following the restricted dental services that were put in place from 6 June 2020, residents had experienced many issues with dental practices either not registering new patients, or not offering appointments to them until after weeks or months, due to being fully booked. Dental practices were referring residents back to NHS 111, which was supposed to be used in emergencies, or requesting that residents try a different practice. Dental practices were also using voice messages as first points of contact.
• These issues had been experienced across other areas of London, and colleagues from the NHS England Dental Commissioning team had listened to these issues at the Pan-London Healthwatch network. After discovering that these issues were taking place on a national level, Healthwatch England ran a national campaign to build a fuller picture. Local dental committees were not involved at this point and work was currently underway to establish connections between these and Healthwatch, so that both could work together in future to improve services and ensure better data sharing.
• Local dental committees had since found engaging with Healthwatch to be a positive experience. As a consequence, the Chair of Healthwatch England and the Chair of the British Dental Association had written a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 21 October 2021, urging him to provide more funding for dental services nationally.
• Whilst dental care and GP services were both primary care services, the commissioning for the former was undertaken by NHS England, with the latter undertaken by Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).
• Healthwatch was currently the first point of contact for residents who were having issues with their dental services.
• Healthwatch Barking and Dagenham (BD) had received many more complaints and concerns from residents in relation to dental services since the pandemic.

The Cabinet Member for Social Care and Health Integration (CM) noted that there were a higher number of NHS dentists operating in the Borough, than surrounding boroughs; but there were still issues in getting dental services to operate face-to-face again, and in getting appointments for the Borough’s looked after children.

In response to questions in relation to the ‘Care Home and Domiciliary Care – Staff Wellbeing during COVID-19’ report, the HO stated that:

• During their interviews, some care home and domiciliary care staff had said that their employers had encouraged them to take time off when they were struggling; however, the question of whether they had to take annual leave for this was not directly explored as part of the interviews.
• The ‘disparity between the social care services’ referred to on page 78 of the agenda pack, referred to the disparity between care home and domiciliary care staff, and other healthcare services.
• The HO had not yet received any feedback on the pilot undertaken by the Council, whereby frontline care workers from across the sector could discuss their challenges and seek support from each other. However, he intended to attend meetings with local care homes and domiciliary care providers and would raise this point at future meetings. The CM stated that the Council had taken on board all recommendations from the report; however, the Council was dependent on the owners of the care home and domiciliary care home services to release their staff to attend these forums and this was part of the difficulty with the pilot and gathering information. Whilst the pilot had worked, the continued pressures of Covid-19 and the winter period would mean continued stresses for care home and domiciliary care staff, likely translating into increased staff sickness. As such, the Council had said that it would review the pilot again after six months, when it would revisit how it could strengthen opportunities for frontline staff to have a voice in its forums. The Council would feedback to Healthwatch at an appropriate time.
• Healthwatch BD was currently discussing how it could better engage with people from other cultural backgrounds within the Borough, as it felt that it needed to personalise its communication, for example, in terms of the messaging around Covid-19 vaccinations.
• In their interviews, staff often expressed concern as to what their peers may think of them if they were not able to attend work; however, they had felt comfortable in sharing their experiences with Healthwatch.

The CM stated that BD had an 80% vaccination rate in terms of its care home and domiciliary care staff.

In response to questions in relation to the ‘Community Insights on Disabled Residents and the Covid Vaccine in North East London’ report, the HO stated that:

• This was the first stage of this particular piece of work. When the insights gained as part of the report were presented to the North East London Clinical Commissioning Group (NEL CCG), GPs were highly positive about the work and the local information and insights gathered. Healthwatch would be continuing this piece of work for the next two years.
• As a consequence of being involved in this work, Healthwatch BD had been nominated for a national award.
• The next stage of this work would focus on how Healthwatch would communicate the issues that disabled residents were facing, as well as the demography of the local population and how this changed over time. Healthwatch would update the Committee as to the next stage of the project.

The Committee praised the work delivered by Healthwatch BD. The HO stated that Healthwatch BD were currently waiting for sign-off on two other projects that it had completed, namely, one on exercise and activity for young people in the Borough, and the other on sexual health services. Looking forward, it would be undertaking a vast project on obesity in BD.