Local Healthwatch, health and wellbeing boards and council scrutiny:

Roles, relationships and adding value

Su TurnerPrincipal Consultant

Centre for Public Scrutiny

11th April 2013

Centre for Public Scrutiny

CfPS an independent charity is the leading national organisation for ideas, thinking and the application and development of policy and practice to promote accountable, transparent and inclusive public services.

We support individuals, organisations and communities to put our principles into practice in the design, delivery and monitoring of public services in ways that build knowledge, skills and trust so that effective solutions are identified together by decision-makers, practitioners and people who use services.

Council scrutinyAims and objectives

• A core element of local democracy

• Aims to address health inequalities

• Provide ‘critical friend’ challenge

• Enable the voice and concerns of the public to be heard

• Carried out by independent members

• Drive improvement in public services

• Enables council scrutiny to review, scrutinise and make recommendations for any matter relating to the planning, provision and operation of health services locally.

Our work

Roles, relationships and adding value

Publication gained insight from 8 councils and others and examined:

• The independent but complementary roles• Opportunities to work together to add value• The common aim of each organisation – to

listen and respond to communities• 3 scenarios to prompt debate locally• Challenges and potential solutions• A gaze in to the future……• Key questions for the 3 organisations to

consider

Working together &adding value

Share information from VCS networks Influence the JSNA Understand experience Highlight concerns Cascade information to the public

Bring together individual and org knowledge, expertise and experience Develop area wide view of Health and social care Agree area wide strategy facilitate shared awareness of

information to improve outcomes from decision making

Be a bridge between professionals and people who use services. Bring a collective memory of public engagement, policy development and local

knowledge about community needs and assets. Be a valuable ‘critical friend’ throughout transition and beyond. Evaluate policies, actions and impact. Carry out pro-active qualitative reviews that can inform and enhance policy and

services.

Spanning the system

Launched 25th March 2013, this publication follows 14 areas as they developed and embedded new working arrangements

Sections include:

• Accountability

• Wider involvement

• Quality and outcomes

• Leadership

Learning and case examples

• Understand roles and responsibilities – at different parts of the commissioning cycle

• Building relationships - gaining trust and credibility• Valuing independence and difference - build on powers • Understanding that all have common goal – work out how to

do it together• Know what each other are doing – by receiving agendas and

attending each other’s meetings• Co-ordinate engagement activity • Use scenarios or real life issues to define ways of working• No one organisations can do this alone!

Learning and case examples

Birmingham used a wide stakeholder event to get all parties to share their priorities and agree joint priorities – using a simple but effective thematic approach: • Prevention• Whole system• Working together• Innovation

Warwickshire used Quality Accounts as an experiment in partnership working. They established working groups for each of their five NHS trusts to their evaluate effectiveness and also used this to develop local quality ‘champions’. The groups included county and district/borough councils and Warwickshire LINk (now Healthwatch), and overlapping councils / LINks.

Learning and case examples

North Lincolnshire agreed that the relationship scrutiny has with local Healthwatch needs to be built on their different powers – for example the ‘enter and view’ powers of local Healthwatch and the referral powers of scrutiny – work together and make the best use of them!

Bristol concluded that health scrutiny, the health and wellbeing board and Healthwatch have common goals and should work together:

• Value independence and keep control of their own agendas.• Share work plans, coordinate activity and avoid duplication.• Collaborate, complement and support each other - add value

To find out more

CfPS can help local Healthwatch develop independence and credibility and help providers value and respond to insight that Healthwatch provides.

www.cfps.org.uk - register on-line or via forms for:- e-newsletters, e-digests & scrutiny exchange- reviews library, on-line forum, latest news- new Policy and Skills Briefings

Twitter: @CfPScrutiny

info@cfps.org.uk or 020 7187 7362 for helpdesk