Healthwatch Oxfordshire has contacted Chadlington Parish Council to advise of Healthwatch’s role and how it plans to work with local councils across the county.
“Dear Parish Clerk
It would be very much appreciated if this email and the attached from Healthwatch Oxfordshire is passed on to all Parish councillors in your area. It is information is about Healthwatch Oxfordshire, the statutory consumer champion for health and social care, how councillors can help and a copy of our latest newsletter. Thank you
Ben Mabbett, Communications Officer, Healthwatch Oxfordshire
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Dear Oxfordshire politician,
I am writing to you to introduce myself and the work of Healthwatch Oxfordshire. My name is Rachel Coney, and I took up post as CEO of your local Healthwatch 3 months ago. Healthwatch Oxfordshire exists to find out what local people think about the health and social care services provided in Oxfordshire, and then to lobby for changes to be made. We are able to do this through our seat on the Health and Wellbeing Board, our relationship with the joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee and our relationship with the Care Quality Commission.
In order to fulfil this statutory role effectively we need to learn as much as possible about what local people think about local services – and we have a remit to work on behalf of anyone in the county who uses any health or care service, regardless of their age.
The way we work is to:
- Encourage local people to contact us and to tell us their stories – good or bad, by phoning us on 01865 520520, or contacting us by email at hello@healthwatchoxfordshire.co.uk , or via our website at www.healthwatchoxfordshire.co.uk
- Give grants of up to £5000 to voluntary organisations who have a particular concern that their members are struggling to access good quality care, so that they can produce a piece of research that evidences where improvements are needed. We will help them design the project, and publish the findings, and will draw resulting recommendations to the attention of commissioners and providers. You can find examples of work we have done through our project grants with several seldom heard groups like deaf people, adults with learning disabilities and Asian Women on our website at http://www.healthwatchoxfordshire.co.uk/reporting-back.
- Give grants of up to £500 to local communities who want to stage a community event, and who are willing to let us come to that event so that we can talk to their visitors about local health and social care services
- Initiate in depth research projects into areas where we have concern about a local service. We have for example , this week, published a report on access to GP services in Oxfordshire, and will be conducting research into the quality of discharge from Oxfordshire hospitals and the degree of dignity in local care in the first half of 2015.
We would very much like to work more closely with all our local politicians, and would like to invite you to notify us of any concerns that you have about local health and social care services. In addition, we will:
- Contact you every couple of months to find out about any health or social care issues raised with you, by your constituents
- Send you our quarterly newsletter, with a request that you send it on to any constituents who have agreed to receive regular information from you ( the most recent addition is attached)
- Contact you occasionally to ask for your helping us with one off tasks, such as promoting our grant funds or advertising the fact that we are looking for volunteers to help us with our work.
I do hope that you will feel able to help us out, and very much look forward to working with you to improve the care and services available to the people of Oxfordshire,
with best wishes
Rachel Coney, Chief Executive, Healthwatch Oxfordshire
rachel.coney@healthwatchoxfordshire.co.uk”