The Board received a report and presentation from Baz Tameez, Healthwatch Staffordshire Manager, who provided an update on the new Healthwatch Staffordshire service, with an emphasis on how it looks different to that before.

The Board were informed that Support Staffordshire were awarded a three-year contract to run a refreshed Healthwatch Staffordshire which commenced 1^st April 2022.

As part of the governance for the new arrangements, a Healthwatch Committee had been established which holds delegated decision-making powers to set the Healthwatch agenda.

The new organisational structure for Healthwatch Staffordshire is as follows:

-      1x Healthwatch Staffordshire Manager

-      4x Engagement Officers

-      1x Project Worker / Data Analyst

The Board were also informed of ongoing collaborative working and engagement work, which included the establishment of a Healthwatch Intelligence Network which sought to engage multiple platforms for gathering health and social care data.

The report also denoted focal topics which would be the subject for investigation. Year one focal investigations would be based on lessons learned through the pandemic. Potential year one topics included:

-      Health in parents of young children

-      Root causes of good and poor teenage mental wellbeing

-      Health outcomes when you have been in care as a child

-      Healthy and unhealthy places of work

-      My health is not just my disability/diagnosis

-      Being an LGBTQIA+ patient/resident in the health and care system

-      Accessing primary care face to face, when I want to and when I need to

-      The role of and accessibility of residential care by friends and family

-      How and why, we ignore the inevitability of death and dying

-      Frailty

-      Older people accessing services

-      Transitions in/out of hospital

The Board were informed that Healthwatch Staffordshire would be working with partners to ensure good local health and care information, advice and guidance was available and accessible, along with engaging with statutory organisations, partnership and Boards to present any findings and influence system change. Joint guidance had been produced and a working relationship established with the Staffordshire Health and Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

Resolved – That the contents of the report be noted.