Support for Healthwatch

Projects and testimonials

Having been the CEO of Healthwatch Kent for over six years, and worked with a wide range of Local Healthwatch as a freelancer, I understand the statutory requirements, quality framework and how to maximise outcomes and impact.

I have helped a number of Local Healthwatch successfully tender for contracts.

Healthwatch Tendering

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  • ‘We reapplied for our contract with the local authority. Steve proved a great support throughout the entire process – his expertise and experience was invaluable. Supporting with both the writing of the bid and preparing and planning for the implementation of the new contract too. His knowledge of the Healthwatch world is vast and not only helped with the bid submission but also proved helpful from a day to day operational perspective – definitely gave me some good ideas to think about’.

    Sam Cook (pronouns she/her)

    Chief Officer

    Healthwatch Salford

  • Doncaster Council had decided to re-tender the Healthwatch Doncaster contract. Due to the tight timescale and the CEO being new in post, I worked with the CEO and Chair to draft the tender response and submit.

    The tender application was successful, ensuring the continuation of the contract for a further 3 to 5 years.

  • I supported The Advocacy Project in applying for the contract for Healthwatch Brent.

    I reviewed material for submission and suggested ideas and edits. I was responsible for uploading the final submission.

    I also supported with the content for the presentation to commissioners.

    The tender was successful and commenced March 2021

  • Healthwatch East Sussex (East Sussex Community Voice) were aware their contract was due to be retendered in autumn 2021. They engaged me to work with staff and volunteers to self-assess against the criteria of the Healthwatch England, to identify areas for improvement and a plan to address them for the tender.

    Once the tender was published, I worked with the senior management team and tender partners to draft the question responses and ensure the application was submitted on time.

    Feedback:

    I’m very pleased to say that the ESCV bid for the HWES and IHCAS contract from ESCC from April 2022 has been successful!

    I would like to thank you again for all the support that you provided to ESCV in making this successful bid.

    We will have a very busy time in early 2022 planning for delivery of the new service from April as well as continuing to deliver on our existing work programme.

    Please can you let me know if you would be interested and available to work with us early next year to help with our planning?

    If so, I will be in touch again to arrange a meeting in January where we can discuss this further.

    Best wishes

    John Routledge, Chair East Sussex VCSE Alliance

    Executive Director

    East Sussex Community Voice (ESCV)

  • I was engaged to help Healthwatch Brighton & Hove prepare for their anticipated retendering. This involved:

    A review of similar tenders and developing an action plan of policies and procedures that required review

    A full review and update of health and safety, risk assessment and business continuity policies and plans

    A full review and update of policies and procedures

    A review of the Decision Making /Prioritising Policy which can be found here

    Although the contract was not retendered, it was awarded to Healthwatch Brighton and Hove because of the high quality of their preparation and their activity.

Strategy, Improving Impact and Generating Income

  • I undertook engagement with Healthwatch Surrey volunteers to inform the refresh of the Volunteer Strategy by the staff and board.

    I interviewed 16 volunteers and provided a report to the board with the key themes of my discussions with them on their experiences, with proposed impacts on the strategy.

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  • Working through the social research experts Traverse, I worked with Healthwatch England to provide intense support to regions where Local Healthwatch were coming together in the boundary of their Integrated Care System (ICS). My work supported them to work together in ways they had not done previously and then as a group to build a relationship with their ICS.

    I held meetings, workshops and 1 to 1 meetings with the Local Healthwatch leaders in;

    Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West

    North East and North Cumbria

    Shropshire, Telford & Wreckin

    South Yorkshire

    I helped develop a range of materials such as a Collaboration Toolkit and Memorandum of Understanding and enabled these areas develop their joint working with limited resources

  • I worked with HW BNSSG to review their policies and documentation to review how they compared to the Healthwatch Quality Framework and their contract.

    I provided a report to the board with good practice and areas for improvement, and then undertook a series of workshops with a board sub-committee to develop a Business Development Strategy, integrating codesigned SWOT and PESTLE analyses.

  • The objectives of the contract were to assist Healthwatch Doncaster to produce a report on engagement with dementia service users and their carers to;

    • Gain a deeper understanding of those on the Dementia pathway in Doncaster and those supporting people on the pathway across demographic cohorts, compared to national data

    • Better understand the experiences of those affected living in communities that are known to be economically deprived

    • Gain a clearer understanding of the impact of health inequalities

    • Gain a deeper understanding of the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic

    • Establish through the findings some key actions that partners can take which would improve the wellbeing and support of those affected

    • Understand the variance in diagnosis rates across Primary Care Networks

    I worked with Healthwatch Doncaster to:

    • Oversee Stakeholder mapping

    • Review existing insight

    • Oversee Survey development

    • Check engagement activities and invites

    • Monitor engagement

    • Weekly review of feedback and update commissioner

    • Collate and analyse all feedback

    • Complete report in HW style

    The final report was delivered on time and under budget:

    Final Report

    In the resultant service tender HW was mentioned prominently, demonstrating the impact the report had:

    NHS SY ICB - Doncaster place - Community Therapy and Support Service

    NHS South Yorkshire ICB

    A recent commissioned engagement exercise undertaken by Doncaster Healthwatch has confirmed that much more work is required in Doncaster to support people and their carers both prior to a potential dementia diagnosis supporting them through their journey and post diagnostically to ensure they receive the right information, advice, guidance, signposting, care and support. Without this consistent, equitable and co-ordinated support this leads to people with dementia and their carers informing us they do not understand what is available or how to access services which often leads to escalation of need and crisis resulting in urgent care being the default response position. Please note: This procurement is being run via the Atamis e-procurement system that can be access via the following link: https://health-family.force.com/s/Welcome. Please Note: the Lowest / actual value is for the whole contract period which will be 3years plus the option to extend for a further 2 years

    Location Yorkshire and the Humber

    Value £2,636,855 to £500,000

    Date notice published 30 September 2022

    Closing 31 October 2022, 12pm

  • The Healthwatch Brent Advisory Group want the team to work more closely with communities in a co-production way. As Interim Lead at the time, whilst we recruited a new permanent manager, I organised a series of workshops with the Advisory group including:

    • Stakeholder mapping

    • Reviewing data and engagement

    • Evaluating projects and priorities so far

    • Agreeing key components of new strategy

Facilitation and Training

  • I project managed the Reflective Review process including:

    Reviewing the format and findings of the previous Reflective Review

    Designing and testing the survey questions

    Setting up the online survey

    providing support for anyone not able to fill out the survey online

    Analysing findings

    Produced final report.

    The board received a report that focussed on the views of stakeholders who knew Healthwatch well, to enable informed perspectives on areas of good practice and where Healthwatch Surrey could improve.

    See the report here

  • During the summer of 2020, I met regularly with the new manager at Healthwatch Kent to support them integrating into their new role.

  • After my work with The Advocacy Project on the successful tender for Healthwatch Brent, I continued to work with the newly appointed manager, Jo Kay and her team to develop the governance and operational policies.

    Together Jo and I created the:

    • Strategy for the organisation

    • Independence Policy

    • Prioritisation/Decision-making Policy

    • Terms of reference for the Advisory Board

    • Role description and recruitment pack

    • Workplan

    • Engagement Plan

    • Stakeholder mapping

    • Project plans

    Jo said;

    It is a pleasure to write this testimonal for Steve as I would highly recommend him as a mentor. Steve has been mentoring me since April 2021, when I started my new role for Healthwatch Brent. Steve's knowledge of Healthwatch and the healthcare system is impeccable, he has continued to encouraged and empower me to flourish in my role. Steve has been consistent, patient and as a coach he has been flexible and catered for my needs so I can carry out my role effectively.

  • “Brent Council commissioned Steve Inett to provide a training session on Healthwatch service models and policy as part of a comprehensive capacity development programme to support a procurement process. It was a pleasure to work with Steve. He was responsive, flexible and organised and he also followed the brief closely but also gave useful input.

    His training style is engaging and the content was thought out and comprehensive. It was a pleasure working with Steve and I would be happy to commission him again.”

    Julia Mlambo

    Interim Partnership and Engagement Manager Brent Council

  • It was a real pleasure to develop an e-Learning course for Healthwatch England. The course 'Online Engagement Techniques' has been made available to 151 local Healthwatch across the country.

    I thoroughly enjoyed working with Institute Associate, Steve Inett on the project, co-producing with the fantastic Healthwatch team, Marianne Patterson, Caroline Tyrrell-Jones, Miranda Knell and Rebecca Knagg

    Martin Beeby, The Consultation Institute

  • I wrote and delivered introductory training to co-production and co-design for a local Healthwatch.

  • I wrote and delivered training to a local Healthwatch on:

    • The key acts of law that statutory organisations should follow

    • The legal basis for Clinical Commissioning Groups

    • Relevant NHS guidance

    • Equality Act

    • Consultations

    • Scrutiny

    • Deploying knowledge and tools as a critical friend

  • I wrote and delivered training for Healthwatch Surrey staff and volunteers on scrutinising Equality Impact Analyses, and what is good practice in developing them and complying with the Public Sector Equality Duty.

    The training enabled staff and volunteers to better scrutinise local equality analyses.

  • Working with The Consultation Institute and Healthwatch England, I wrote and delivered training for Local Healthwatch staff on scrutinising Equality Impact Analyses, and what is good practice in developing them and complying with the Public Sector Equality Duty.

    The training was delivered four times in the year and enabled staff in over 30 Local Healthwatch to better scrutinise local equality analyses.

  • I worked with Healthwatch East Sussex to plan, set up and chair their 2020 Annual Event over Zoom.

    Testimonials:

    ‘I am finding it difficult to find the words to adequately express how good today's event was.

    I honestly believe it was the best event we have ever held.

    All the speakers had interesting, informative and useful things to say and provided us with much to think about.

    Well done everyone involved in arranging the event.

    I thought Steve chaired the extremely well and ran the event very smoothly..’

    Roger Sweetman, Healthwatch East Sussex Trustee

    ‘Congratulations to all involved with organising & running (including Steve) today's Annual Event. It was a really interesting, 'buzzy' event & felt interactive, a great effort when online; excellent speakers & topical workshops that produced good ideas & comments.

    Agree with Roger, probably the best Annual Event!’

    Liz Mackie, Volunteer and Community Liaison Manager, Healthwatch East Sussex

    ‘Thank you all for your help and support with today’s event, and to Steve for facilitating - I’ve received feedback from various people complimenting the day and how useful they found the workshops.’

    Charlie Rustem, Manager of Communications, Healthwatch East Sussex

  • On Tuesday 10th November 2021 nearly 90 people from across Sussex took part in a Healthwatch in Sussex webinar where we heard some powerful and emotional stories. Relatives and family carers of care home residents engaged in lively discussions with professionals from a variety of health and care services and support organisations.

    I supported Healthwatch in Sussex in setting up the event and facilitating on the night, managing the technical aspects to support the chair.

    Experiences and views that were shared at the event have been captured and will be drawn together, shared with participants and published to inform future decision-making for care homes. The webinar was recorded and is available for anyone to watch by clicking the following link: https://youtu.be/D53_dekly3k.

    The speaker presentations are also available to download on our website.

    Alastair Hignell, Co-Chair of the webinar says:

    “This event reinforced my belief in the generosity and compassion of the human spirit. That people from so many different organisations, often with competing priorities, could come together and share their expertise, their insights – and their agreement to differ – in such a collaborative approach; was truly affirmative.

    It reminded me once again of the values of teamwork and the need for a multi-pronged approach to the problems, both new and long-standing, that confront us.”

    Liz Mackie on behalf of Healthwatch in Sussex added:

    “We are delighted with the response to our webinar and the genuine willingness expressed from all our partners to continue these discussions with family carers over the coming months.

    There are positive signs ahead with the prospect of vaccinations but there are still difficult times to get through. Our commitment to amplify the voices of all family carers and care home residents remains undiminished.”

    Healthwatch in Sussex would like to thank everybody who gave generously of their time at our webinar.

  • The aim of the project was to provide feedback to HW Surrey for Surrey County Council to inform the service specification of their Mental Health Carers Support Service by:

    Reviewing feedback and insight gathered so far

    Developing a workshop format that utilises the insight to facilitates co-designing the new service specification

    Facilitate Three workshops with carers and one workshop with stakeholders

    Provide the results in a report for HW Surrey to share with Surrey County Council.

    Feedback from the project commissioner at Surrey County council:

    “Thank you for inviting me today. It was such an informative session and I feel confident it will yield some great feedback for us. Please pass on a ‘well done’ to the whole team. The session was well run, and delivered in a way which really encouraged feedback”.

    Feedback from Healthwatch Surrey:

    Steve did a fantastic job of planning, facilitating and reporting on a series of co-design workshops for Healthwatch Surrey. We were working with carers of people with mental ill health to understand what good support services would look like for them. Steve’s approach and expertise meant he kept the groups on topic whilst allowing everyone to express their thoughts, in what for participants was a very emotive subject matter. Steve produced a high-quality report at the end of the groups which captured all the findings and summarised the key themes. Steve’s work is of a very high standard, and we will certainly work with him again on future projects.

Interim Leadership & Mentoring

  • The three Healthwatch were new contracts for The Advocacy People. I worked with them to use best practice to:

    Put decision making policies in place

    Set up the processes for agreeing Healthwach priorities

    Codesign terms of reference and code of conduct

    Support the groups and chair where necessary

    Recruit members and point of contact for support

    Provide training and induction for new members of the public

    Monitor new priorities being added to the workplan

    Train staff to manage the groups and workplan

  • I worked with The Advocacy Project as Interim Healthwatch Lead for both Healthwatch contracts for 6 months

    I developed the policies and procedures

    I inducted the Advisory groups and supported staff transferring from the previous provider

    I developed the draft priorities and engagement plan

    I represented Healthwatch Westminster and Healthwatch Kensington & Chelsea at senior strategic meetings with the developing Integrated Care System and Place arrangements.

    I recruited the permanent staff and provided them with a handover