Agenda item

The report seeks to update the Committee with details of the Service User Engagement contracts commissioned by Adults Commissioning and Wiltshire ICB, detailing projects conducted through 2024. 

The Chairman welcomed Alison Elliott (Director – Commissioning, Adults and Children) who was in attendance to update the Committee with details of the Service User Engagement contracts commissioned by Adults Commissioning and Wiltshire ICB.

Alison wished to make an apology to the Wiltshire Centre for Independent (WCIL) as in the report circulated with the agenda referred to the Wiltshire Pioneers project but omitted to say that this is run by the WCIL and that they are a very important partner for the Council in gaining the voice of those people who use our services.

Summarising the more report included within the agenda pack, the following was highlighted:

·            In January 2024, the contracts for Service User Engagement (SUE) were jointly commissioned by Wiltshire Council and Wiltshire ICB.  The SUE for 5 to 18 year olds was awarded to the Wiltshire CIL and the SUE for those aged 18+ was awarded to Voice It Hear It which is a consortium of voluntary sector organisations to get the voice from a health and social care perspective;

·            The Council has made to clear with those organisations what they need from them so that they are hearing the voice from a broad spectrum of the community and that they are consulted and engaged with on new innovations or changes to services that are provided and they inform on how the Council can engage with those hard to reach.

·            The project reports show how those commissioned have engaged and feedback is received from the Voice It Hear It group who did a survey on the Council’s behalf and found that the majority of people would rather remain at home and be supported and going into a care home was the least favourite option, obviously sometimes it is not possible for all wants to be actioned but within the commissioning they consider and reflect what people want;

·            The Voice It Hear It providers work in close collaboration with the Wiltshire Youth Voice and Participation team to ensure there is a joined up approach to delivering engagement activity and they particularly want to hear the 18-25 SEND voice to be able to make improvements;

·            Public Health identified engagement groups and people using The Medley services were set as a pilot project to understand how to support adults with a learning disability and their unpaid carers to complete their health checks due to current health inequalities data;

·            An additional contract was awarded on 1 January 2024 to Healthwatch Wiltshire which is a statutory organisation acting as champions of Wiltshire communities to report health issues and feedback to the Wiltshire ICB, Wiltshire Council and the Care Quality Commission.  They were currently supporting the Council on engagement of Fijian and Nepalese military families and Wiltshire’s understand of childhood vaccines;

·            The Wiltshire Pioneers is run by the Wiltshire CIL and they are a group of residents in Wiltshire with experience of Adult Social Care (ASC) services who work alongside practitioners colleagues in ASC.  The Council is challenged in a positive way by the Pioneers and they have helped to change the way they do things for example they had reviewed and coproduced the financial benefits assessment form to make it more user friendly and the Pioneers now support a segment of ASC induction for new staff and they are including quarterly disability ally training to all staff; and

·            Following the recent SEND inspection, it was highlighted that the Council does well with coproduction work and hearing the voice of parents and children and they would hope to see the same in the CQC inspection findings.  These Service User Contracts were important to gain the voice of a range of residents to further develop and commission services.

Caroline Finch from Wiltshire CIL thanked the Officer for the acknowledgement that they lead the Wiltshire Pioneers project and commented that the Pioneers initiative which they had designed developed was taking off and that it had attracted national interest with four universities to date keen to work with them and develop the concept further.  The University of the West of England were collaborating with them and were currently evaluating the programme. 

The Committee asked the following questions which included but were not

limited to:

·            Could the report circulated with the agenda be amended to acknowledge that the Wiltshire CIL were leading the Wiltshire Pioneers project. It was noted that the Clerk would action this after the meeting.

·            How are pioneers appointed?  It was noted that a briefing to the committee could be provided and that the people are encouraged to join when they are working with them at the CIL if they feel they would be interested and provide useful insight. 

·            What area of Wiltshire do the pioneers work in and if it is localised how would it go forward to reflect all of the county as member had not heard of the scheme in Salisbury? The member would appreciate details of the breadth of work in the county.  It was noted that it covers the whole of the county as Wiltshire CIL covers all of the county.  YouTube videos had been produced and it was not restricted by locality.   The Pioneers had been working with specific teams of practitioners and that work would spread across the county but the impact is on the whole of Wiltshire.

·            What are the general ages of the pioneers?  It was noted that most of pioneers were younger, up to the age of 25 and whilst there were older pioneers, the younger ones were working with the Council at the moment.

·            How are you hearing the views of older people?  It was noted that the Pioneers was just one part of hearing voices and that through the Voice It Hear It groups involved they are engaging with a number of different groups of people to get their input and feedback on services and what can be done differently.

·            As someone who has been involved in a number of the engagement projects for older people – will those involved in giving their views and feedback actually receive feedback themselves as to what happens next and what the outcomes are?  It was noted that that was a really important point raised and Alison Elliott agreed to pick that up to the particular event that was referred to and also check on the general feedback loop. If any others were involved with feedback sessions and wanted to know the outcomes could they contact the Officer directly regarding this so that it could be picked up.

·            Do these contracts roll on annually and has it gone through the relevant approval system.  It was noted that it had gone through the appropriate systems and that it was a joint funded contract with the ICB and details could be provided if required.

·            Are there any new initiatives that might get prioritised because of what you have learned?  It was noted that it was too early to tell from the specific Service User Engagement contracts what the priorities would be however, those involved with the Carers Strategy engagement and the Dementia Strategy were heavily influenced by what carers and services users said.  The feedback received from carers was very clear that they wanted support from organisations that understood what their cared for person was going through specific to their needs and not a generic carers organisation.  There had been immediate differences highlighted by the Pioneers in changing the financial assessment letter so that it is easier to use and the way that the Council does staff training around disability.

·            The papers refer to a Wiltshire ICB is there a subset organisation?  It was noted there was an error in the report to refer to just a Wiltshire ICB as that was not the case – it is the BSW ICB, and Caroline Holmes (present at the meeting) was the Director for the Wiltshire locality area. 

·            Details had been given of outcomes for the Wiltshire Pioneers but that details were not included for some of the other contracts – could further brief details be provided as to what the outcomes were following that engagement. This comment was noted.

·            It would be useful for the committee to know who led on the projects.  It was noted that the Wiltshire CIL would lead on projects for children and young people and that those in the Voice It Hear It consortium would lead on the other projects as relevant.

Resolved that:

1.          That there be a briefing to the Chair and Vice-Chair in 6 months, to update on the delivery of the Service User Engagement Contract.  (This would then inform the timing of the annual report as below).

2.          That an annual performance report on the delivery of the Service User Engagement Contract (including outcomes / evaluations where available – e.g. “what good looks like”, number of attendees, highlighting key changes made, etc.), be timed to include the evaluation by the University of the West of England on the Pioneers.  It should also include the ‘you said, we did’ information to show how feedback is being used and how people have engaged are told about what happens to their feedback, and changes to ways of working based on engagement (e.g. financial assessment letter changes were mentioned at the meeting).

3.          The Committee receive a briefing from the Voice it, Hear it consortium to understand the roles, responsibilities and relationships within the consortium, the plans to deliver the contract in the year ahead and a review of performance on its first year.

4.          The Committee receive a briefing on the Wiltshire Pioneer Project run by the Wiltshire Centre for Independent Living.