Thank you for attending!

 

Event details

Our Annual Public Meeting outlines what we’ve achieved over the past year, our challenges and our plans for the future.

As the NHS turned 70 this year, we explored the 'Changing face of Healthcare', the progress the NHS has made since 1948, and the changes that our staff and patients have seen throughout the years. 

See a recap

You can see a recap of what was discussed by following our hashtag on Twitter, #SCCGAPM

Questions & Answers

 

Q: The 2017/18 Annual Report mentions the launch of three Springboard Cafes. These cafes are five years old, so why is this mentioned?

A: It is right that the Springboard cafes have been funded since 2013. This year, the CCG has supported the re-commissioning of the cafes alongside colleagues from Sheffield City Council. We recognise that they play a great part in preventing the escalation of low level mental health conditions for people across the city.

 

Q: What are we doing to make sure people with learning disabilities can get into sport in light of the Special Olympics last year?

A: There is a focus, more and more, on sports excellence as a part of medical practice. In Sheffield, we are developing a physical health strategy with our partner organisations, and this will specifically include support for people living with learning disabilities, serious mental illness and autism spectrum conditions. we know the strategy will involve ‘Move More’ and other preventative work, and there will be more information available as we get the working group together.

 

Q: What are your future plans for mental health support in Sheffield?

A: There is a city-wide transformation plan in progress, and the national five year forward view for mental health is being implemented locally. There is a huge programme around learning disabilities that is nationally mandated. There are 25 different programmes across areas such as crisis care, developing neighbourhood mental health and wellbeing services, employment and accommodation among many other things.  We hope that gives a bit more insight into what we’re up to, and we’ll be announcing all updates in the future on our ‘News’ page.

 

Q: Mental Health Therapies are all limited in the number of sessions. What is supposed to happen to patients who are still unable to cope?

A: Therapies should not be limited to an arbitrary number of ‘sessions’, but they should consider factors such as changing needs throughout the process, or therapeutic breaks in therapy, if they help a person receive the right treatment at the right time. The aim will always be recovery.

When it comes to waiting times, mental health services have never been given any national or local target waiting times from NHS England. IAPT, then, is the first service where standards have been employed. 88% of people who access the IAPT service are being seen and treated within 6 weeks, and 99% are being seen and treated within 18 weeks. This means IAPT are currently seeing and treating 12,500 people per year.

 

Q: I am a nurse passionate about end of life care. If I start a domiciliary care business will I be able to get clients from CCG? Who do I contact?

A: This depends on whether you are looking to set up a company that provided a private service to the Sheffield population, or if you would be looking to tender for NHS contracts.

In the NHS we already have those contracts in place with existing providers, but at some time in the future they may be up for review. If and when this happens, it would depend on a new provider’s ability to meet and deliver the specification set out by the CCG and successfully take part in a tendering process.

If you would like some more information, you can contact us via sheCCG.sheffieldCCG@nhs.net.

 

Q: Do you know about the impact on patients/carers due to the closure of a specialist voluntary service around Thalassaemia? How do I set up a new group?

A: At the Annual Public Meeting, Director of Public Health Greg Fell responded and apologised. The closure was due to austerity, and Greg mentioned that he was more than happy to have a conversation around this and the creation of a local support group.

The CCG have advised that social services at Sheffield City Council should be contacted and that the CCG are happy to help explore how the group can be connected into the wider network.

 

Q: How you engage and involve at the CCG?

A: The panel at the Annual Public Meeting acknowledged the importance of voice to capture experience but also recognise that it can be challenging to achieve.  Nonetheless, as commissioners of local health services, we are committed to engaging with the people of Sheffield so that we can provide the right services for the whole city. We undertake public engagement activities in a proportionate and timely manner according to the strategic direction of the organisation. The feedback we received helps to inform our decision making and gives us a broader awareness across the organisation for our planning. We always aim to work with specific communities identified though the equalities impact assessment process, service data, and public health information, as well as the broader general public when appropriate. Our Involve Me network is the best way to keep up to date with our current public engagement activities. We send out regular updates about the CCG and other local health services as well as details of engagement opportunities and events via a regular e-newsletter. More details about Involve Me, including how to sign up can be found at www.sheffieldccg.nhs.uk/involveme.

 

Q: When will the CCG show political will and stand up for the NHS and ensure it gets the funding it needs? More locally, when will the CCG start listening to people around urgent care and stop consulting about decision they’ve already made?

A: The CCG is not a political organisation and therefore we don’t present political views, it is also not a campaigning organisation. When we go to national meetings we try to encourage NHS England to fund services that we think are important and we have been successful in attracting additional funds to the city. We try and use the resource to the best of our ability however there will never be enough funding.

The effort Save our NHS has put into raising the awareness of the CCG's consultation on urgent care in primary care was welcomed. You can find the most up to date information about the Urgent Care review here.

 

Q: How will carers through future programmes be identified/assessed and supported?

A: This is a consideration in the city-wide strategy and action plan that we’re currently developing. We will also be working with teams across the CCG as part of this work, and to ensure we have captured the needs of carers correctly.

 

Q: The recent Healthwatch Sheffield report and Sheffield Mental Health Challenge Day report (soon to be published) have both strongly identified a need for more frequent and more effective involvement in the City, along with highlighting the value of peer led initiatives. With this in mind, and the closure of yet more mental health user-led organisations it seems there is a need to use additional methods of involvement to complement those already in existence. Last year the CCG said: “it is our over-arching desire to work collaboratively and increase the involvement of people with lived experience...we cannot get away from the fact that we are in the early stages of learning to do this effectively”. Therefore, can the CCG acknowledge that it is important to increase diversity in involvement, in order to hear a more diverse range of voices from the mental health community?  And can it now commit to putting learning into action by also supporting other involvement mechanisms, in particular those that are both user-led and independent?

A: Our Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism Portfolio stated in reply to a similar question last year that we intended to increase the involvement of people with lived experience.

Since the last APM we have involved service user voice in the following ways:

• Public engagement meeting with experts by experience to help to shape the Sheffield Mental Health Strategy earlier this year. The draft strategy was presented to both the Learning Disability and Autism Partnership Boards, to seek more diverse service user voices

• Sheffield Mental Health Guide published last year was co-produced with Flourish, a not for profit organisation, with service user voices at its heart

• Crisis Care Concordat chair is planned to rotate to be an expert by experience (Steph de la Haye)

• Eating Disorder workshop held in June at which experts by experience and family carers were active participants in mapping their journey and experience of services

• Healthwatch have been involved in the Mental Health and Learning Disability Delivery Board, and have overviewed the Sheffield Mental Health Transformation Programme

Some of the other things we have coming up include:

• Healthwatch are hosting a session of the Age Hub with Sheffield Futures, Age UK Sheffield, and the Equality Hub Network Sheffield to contribute the voices of local people further to the strategy

• Chillypep have been commissioned as a third sector organisation with young people as advocates to help us to develop a pilot project for Personal Health Budgets

• Co-production of the Sheffield Autism Strategy is underway with an increased membership of experts by experience on the Autism Partnership Board, including user led organisations

• Work on Transforming Care with “Speak Up”, a user led organisation of experts by experience who hosted a day on “sharing our aspirations for where we want to live”

So, whilst we do believe that we have actively heard a more diverse range of voices from the mental health community this year, we still feel that we could improve.

The Mental Health Team therefore held a coproduction session in April 2018, with an expert by experience on coproduction (Steph de la Haye) to help us to shape and build a long term commitment to our approach. We have since secured some funding to further develop our co-production approaches and to support other involvement mechanisms, in particular those that are both user-led and independent, as we believe that that we will never have heard enough voices, we should always strive to hear and involve more.

 

Q: Can I ask why the CCG feel it is right to go against the NHS guidelines by withdrawing Liothyronine from prescription in Sheffield, especially as many patients have been prescribed Liothyronine for many years by specialist Endrocrinologist.

 A: Liothyronine has not been withdrawn from prescription in Sheffield, however we are implementing NHSE guidance that advises CCGs that:

• Individuals currently prescribed liothyronine should be reviewed by a consultant NHS endocrinologist with consideration given to switching to levothyroxine where clinically appropriate.

• A local decision, involving the Area Prescribing Committee (or equivalent) informed by National guidance (e.g. from NICE or the Regional Medicines Optimisation Committee), should be made regarding arrangements for on-going prescribing of liothyronine. This should be for individuals who, in exceptional circumstances, have an on-going need for liothyronine as confirmed by a consultant NHS endocrinologist.

 

Q: At the recent NHS Confed meeting, Jeremy Hunt said that the focus should be on productivity, efficiency and reduction of waste through changes in care pathways to prevention rather than cure. What are your plans to invest more in prevention, especially to treat tobacco addiction and address obesity, when public health sits outside of the CCG budget, and may not receive any additional funding recently committed to the NHS. How do you see med tech, digital healthcare and pharmaceutical companies supporting this agenda in your locality?

A: The Sheffield Accountable Care Partnership (ACP) is a group of organisations working in partnership to share responsibility for planning and delivering all health, care and wellbeing services and outcomes for our city.

It has been set up so that our organisations can work more closely together to bring about major changes in the way services are planned and delivered.

The aim is to improve the health and wellbeing of Sheffield residents, reduce health inequalities and focus on ways to keep people healthy, preventing them from becoming unwell.

Through the ACP we will be looking at reduction of waste, productivity, efficiency and prevention amongst other things.

We are also keen to use digital healthcare more. One example of where we have done that this year is working with the council, hospitals and care homes to deliver an electronic bed system – an online portal where care homes can share their bed vacancies with social care teams at the touch of a button. In the past those teams had to call round care homes asking for bed availability. Now they have the information at their finger tips and can search for the most appropriate bed for the individual.