Agenda item

To provide the Inner West Community Committee with an update on the current Healthwatch Leeds Projects.

The Head of Locality Partnerships provided a cover report for the update on the current Healthwatch Leeds Projects. An Officer from Healthwatch Leeds presented the report, Members had been provided with slides and information.

The Officer highlighted the following points:

·  Healthwatch Leeds is an organisation that is the voice of the people and communities that use health and care services in Leeds, particularly those who are facing the greatest health inequalities. They provide an advice, information and signposting service to assist those who are struggling to navigate the health and care system and record enquiries on their database. They then feedback to the relevant organisations.

·  The latest projects included Community Mental Health Transformation and Repeat Prescriptions.

·  Inner West and Inner South areas of Leeds were part of a pilot looking at mental health, metal health services, the local area and a few key aspects of the CMHT service model. The target population were those who have or have had a mental health condition, carers of people with a mental health condition and those who fall into both categories. The pilot showed that support was felt to be less effective due to it being infrequent, time-limited or took a long time to access. The impact of the area on residents’ mental health was fear of crime, anti-social behaviour, unsuitable housing and neighbour issues. The pilot found that people were more comfortable accessing services in traditional NHS-orientated venues and community-based venues. Only a minority of people were comfortable using phone lines. The Committee heard that the original plan was to extend the pilot, however, this had now changed and from February 2025, parts of the new model will be rolled out citywide to provide more joined-up community mental health services and support.

·  A project on repeat prescription had found that almost half of people were ordering their prescriptions online. However, fewer people from diverse communities, older age groups and those in low-income areas were using digital options. When using the digital options people praised the online ordering and pharmacy services. However, many found the online systems confusing, or they did not have the skills to use them, with some having to rely on others to order for them. It was also noted that there was inconsistent communication from GP’s and the pharmacies.

·  Key recommendations from this project were:

o  Keep non-digital options available

o  Surgeries and pharmacies should make people aware of electronic repeat dispensing and provide support to people to order online.

o  A consistent and clear approach in information for ordering online.

o  Better tracking to inform people when prescriptions were ready.

Members discussions and comments included:

·  It was acknowledged that anti-social behaviour was a cause for mental health. Members were of the view that the Council needed to be more effective when reports are received in relation to noise issues and to act earlier. It was suggested that LASBT be invited to attend either a future Committee or the Community Safety sub-group for further discussion on this matter.

·  Members were concerned that over 50% of people were not comfortable with using phone lines to discuss mental health issues and were of the view that more options should be available, to ensure that people felt comfortable to discuss issues. It was noted that often phone calls were lengthy, but it was quicker to get the appointments over the phone rather than wait for a face-to-face consultation. 

·  Members welcomed the fact that the pilot in Inner West and Inner South had proved successful and that better service provision was going to be rolled out across the city.

·  Members recognised that digital apps were a useful tool and that it may be the younger people who were more willing to use them. However, they did wish to see more support for those who were not confident in using digital apps and for more options to be available to those who did not want or were unable to use digitalised systems.

·  It was acknowledged that many GP’s and pharmacies were now using online ordering for repeat prescriptions. However, the Members had concerns that there were variances in information about ordering prescriptions and that often the patient relied on family interactions to assist.

·  Members provided positive experiences of the delivery service, but had concerns in relation to news articles that these may cease and that some pharmacies may close.

·  Members raised concerns about the synchronicity of prescriptions and the lack of communications between GP’s and pharmacies.

The Committee were informed that the findings had been presented to the Health and Wellbeing Board, Primary Care Board and the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board. The report included recommendations. 

It was suggested that the Committee would welcome a quarterly update from Health watch Leeds on progress, which could be provided to the Locality Officer as part of the Update Report. The presenting Officer said Healthwatch Leeds would provide this and would find it useful to work with Councillors with a shared insight on the Inner West area.

RESOLVED – To note the content of the report and the discussions.