We listened to over 9,000 local residents about their experiences of health and social care services at our engagement events across Birmingham in hospitals, GP surgeries and other healthcare settings, as well as through our online Feedback Centre. To make sure we hear from all the city’s diverse communities, our community engagement teams have also been to mosques, colleges, food banks and events run by our wonderful network of voluntary sector partners.

Our volunteers are essential to helping us reach as many people as possible and this year we’ve been happy to welcome more people into our brilliant team. We’re really proud to have them representing Healthwatch Birmingham out in the community. Find out more about joining us as a volunteer.

What we hear helps us understand what’s important to the people who use health and social care services, and our reports and investigations mean services hear them too. This year we’ve shared what people have told us in our reports into community mental health services, pharmacies, support for children and young people with ADHD and/or autism and referrals from primary to secondary care. We’re currently looking for feedback from people who use home care services.

Our reports make a big difference to the care people receive. We support services to make the changes people want and this year we’ve helped with important improvements to maternity services for Black African and Black Caribbean families, prostate cancer patients and people seeking help for mental health.

Over 6,000 people have come to us for free and confidential information and signposting to get the facts they need to help make complaints, register with a GP, find local support groups and much more. We also expanded our website with more information about getting help with the NHS and social care so answers to the most common questions about local services are now just a click away.

Healthwatch Birmingham is proud to be your champion for local health and social care services. We’re grateful to everyone who has shared their views with us this year, and we hope to hear from many more as we head into 2025.

The Healthwatch Birmingham office is closed for the Christmas break from 1pm on Tuesday 24th December 2024 until 8am on Thursday 2nd January 2025.

The post Merry Christmas! appeared first on Healthwatch Birmingham & Solihull.

We want to hear from:

• People receiving home care and support in Birmingham.
• Friends and relatives of people receiving home care and support in Birmingham.

Please spare 5-10 minutes to complete our confidential survey by 12th January 2025.

Your care workers, social worker, case manager or anyone involved in providing you with home care will not see your responses without your consent. All names will be removed from the report Healthwatch Birmingham will present to the local NHS and Birmingham City Council, which will include your ideas for changes to home care services. 

The post Do you use home care services? appeared first on Healthwatch Birmingham & Solihull.

Flu has already had a significant impact on the NHS in Birmingham and Solihull this winter, with the NHS seeing many more adults and children with flu than this time last year. 

In Birmingham and Solihull, health and care staff have already given over 460,000 vaccinations for flu, COVID-19 and RSV but take up is still someway below the national average. The NHS is urging those who are eligible and have not yet had a vaccine to  book their immunisation today.

Uptake for the flu vaccination is particularly low among for pregnant women and secondary school age children have had the vaccination. There are worries about the low numbers of adults with conditions that place them at risk of getting more poorly from a respiratory illness who have been vaccinated for Covid.

People can now get a Covid vaccination until 31 January and flu vaccinations will continue to be available until the end of March 2025. Across Birmingham and Solihull, there are 158 different sites offering the Covid vaccination while patients can get the flu vaccine in 350 different locations. RSV is available from GPs.

The NHS is also asking people with cold and flu symptoms not to go to A&E, where there are long waiting times. Instead, people should visit their local pharmacist for cold and flu remedies, or call NHS 111 for more information and advice.

Visit the NHS BSOL Immunisations and Vaccinations page for more information about how to get vaccinated.

The post Get vaccinated to stop the spread of common illnesses this winter appeared first on Healthwatch Birmingham & Solihull.

As a key member of the BLACHIR (Birmingham & Lewisham African & Caribbean Health Inequalities Review) Taskforce, Healthwatch Birmingham Research & Policy Manager Dr. Chipiliro Kalebe-Nyamongo made sure the experiences of Birmingham residents we heard for our investigations into health inequalities in the Somali community and maternity care for Black African and Black Caribbean women were central to the project. Working with local partners including Birmingham City Council and Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, we held local NHS services accountable for making improvements, such as training Community Champions to help African and Caribbean families get early access to maternity care. 

The post Our health inequalities work wins National BAME Health and Care Award appeared first on Healthwatch Birmingham & Solihull.

Our research underlines how valuable day centres are to the often vulnerable people who use them and their carers. They provide important friendships with other service users and staff, alongside giving carers much needed breaks from caring for loved ones.

We understand that the decision is in response to the extreme financial pressures facing BCC and has not been taken likely. However, the impact on service users is potentially so serious that it is imperative the plan receives the most thorough scrutiny. Healthwatch Birmingham is disappointed that the government Commissioners overseeing BCC’s affairs have rejected the request for further investigation of the proposed closures. We hope that the Commissioners will reconsider their position.

Vulnerable people and their carers are already anxious about these proposals. Effective communication is vital, including information about available alternatives if closures go ahead and how service users can travel to them, alongside signposting towards mental health support for people facing a potentially traumatic disruption to their relationships and routine. Without certainty about these matters, people in already difficult situations will be at higher risk of isolation and neglect.

BCC also needs to understand the impact on staff. The assurance that all staff will have the opportunity for redeployment is welcome, but there is a danger of the city losing valuable workers highly skilled in helping vulnerable people.

In addition to these concerns about services becoming overstretched, there must be support for current users of alternative centres who may have familiar surroundings and friendships disrupted by an influx of new faces.

Our research also noted the benefits day centres provide for wider society, including reducing pressure on the NHS by helping people look after their health and enabling carers to continue in employment. As the voice of everyone who uses local health and social care services, Healthwatch Birmingham is committed to understanding the impact of cuts on services and encourage people to tell us how changes are affecting them. Birmingham citizens need to know that BCC is both providing a safety net for those immediately affected by these proposed closures and is also planning to ensure an already struggling local health and social care system will be able to cope.

– Richard Burden, Chair, Healthwatch Birmingham

The post Statement on planned closures of local day centres appeared first on Healthwatch Birmingham & Solihull.

We know change is needed. But we also know that many of the solutions we need are already here, working somewhere in the NHS today. We in Healthwatch Birmingham are already doing great work in this area and are supporting the NHS to tackle these challenges head on with improvements to community mental health teams, maternity services and GP referrals.

We also know there is much more to do, which is why we are playing our part in the launch the consultation for the 10-Year Health Plan alongside the government, and we want to hear from you — patients, their families and the wider public — about your NHS story.

Whether you have a little to say or a lot, your views, experiences and ideas will shape immediate steps and long-term changes: a new 10-Year Health Plan for the NHS.

This is a once in a generation opportunity to make the NHS fit for the future. Together we can fix it. We need your voice.

Go to change.nhs.uk to find out how you can take part.

The post Change NHS: Helping shape a health service fit for the future appeared first on Healthwatch Birmingham & Solihull.

Based on feedback from 137 parents or carers of children and young people with ASD or ADHD, the Healthwatch Birmingham report Experiences of the neurodevelopmental assessment and diagnostic pathway for children and young people in Birmingham identified issues including:

• Length of wait for the referral and professional support.
• Professionals not submitting documents on time and referrals being missed, further delaying the assessment and diagnostic process.
• Restrictive criteria and thresholds.
• Professionals’ knowledge of the referral pathway – how, when and who to refer to.
• Focusing on parenting style and child’s behaviour rather than the child’s symptoms.
• Poor communication and partnership working with families.
• Lack of support for families before and after diagnosis.

People told us they want to see the following improvements:

• Support families, children and young people to ‘wait well’.
• Increase training and support for professionals referring children and young people for assessment.
• Improve the assessment and diagnosis process.

In response to these findings local NHS services have committed to taking actions including:

• Developing better resources for parents/carers and young people explaining the support available to people while they wait for assessment.
• Working with 40 schools across Birmingham and Solihull as part of the Partnership for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS) Project.
• A quality improvement programme focused on improving the assessment and diagnosis process and reducing waiting times.

Healthwatch Birmingham will be monitoring the progress of these improvements, to help ensure all children and young people with ASD and ADHD can get the support they need.

‘As a society we have a responsibility to ensure that every child has the support they need. Our report shows that we are failing in that responsibility. This is put in stark relief by one of the parents who shared their views with us, who felt the long delay in getting her child referred and assessed was “robbing” her of the chance to enjoy her secondary school years.

Issues around shortages of the staff needed to meet the ever increasing demand for neurodiversity assessments that lie at the core of these delays cannot be resolved in Birmingham alone. We call on the new government to identify and take the immediate and long-term action necessary.

But, as many parents told us, there are also things that can be done locally.

There must be a change of approach from one that is diagnosis-led to one which focuses on the needs of those seeking help. Care and support must be offered in a timely way, whether families have received a diagnosis or not.

Local services have told us they understand this, but must now translate that understanding into improving practical support.’ – Richard Burden, Chair, Healthwatch Birmingham  

The post Children and young people in Birmingham struggling to get support for Autism and ADHD appeared first on Healthwatch Birmingham & Solihull.

What services does Midland Met provide?

Run by Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, Midland Met will have all the Trust’s acute services, emergency care, diagnostics and inpatient wards. These services include:

• 2 Emergency Departments (1 adult and 1 children)
• Same Day Emergency Care Unit
• Critical Care Unit
• Children’s Department
• Emergency/elective surgery
• Acute medical Unit
• Surgical assessment unit
• Medical day case unit
• Imaging and diagnostics
• Maternity and Neonatal services
• Emergency Gynaecology assessment unit
• Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia department
• Cardiology services
• Physiology department
• Haematology, Orthopaedic, Stroke, Gastroenterology, Respiratory and Toxicology wards

The new hospital has 736 beds, half of which are in single occupancy en-suite rooms. The patient experience will also be improved by a building that has been designed for patients to move around more easily and has lots of natural light.

How will this affect my care?

From October 6^th, if you would normally go to Sandwell Hospital for emergency care you will now go to the A&E at the Midland Met instead, as this will no longer be available at Sandwell.

An expanded hours Urgent Treatment Centre will be at Sandwell Hospital for serious but not life-threatening medical issues. Any care that requires you to stay in hospital for a night or more will now be done at Midland Met, with the new Sandwell Health Campus on the Sandwell General Hospital site now offering outpatient appointments and day treatments, including short stay operations.

From November 10^th, if you would normally go to City Hospital for emergency care, you will go to the A&E at the Midland Met instead as this will no longer be available at City.

Any care that requires you to stay in hospital for a night or more will also be done at Midland Met. Birmingham and Midland Eye Centre will remain open at the City Hospital site as part of the new City Health Campus, as will the Birmingham Treatment Centre for outpatient appointments and day treatments, including short stay operations.

Find out more about Midland Met Hospital

Find out how to get to Midland Met Hospital

The post Midland Metropolitan University Hospital opens on October 6th appeared first on Healthwatch Birmingham & Solihull.

We want to:

• Learn what went well and what could have been better.
• Understand how patients and families are involved in decisions about their discharge and how well their needs are taken into account.
• Find out whether things like age, ethnicity and disabilities affect people’s experiences. 
• Hear suggestions for changing the discharge process.

Your views will provide valuable information to the NHS to improve the discharge process in Birmingham hospitals.

Please spare 5-10 minutes to complete our confidential survey by 16th September 2024. 

Many thanks for taking the time to complete this survey and helping to improve health and social care in Birmingham.

The post Have you or someone you know been discharged from a hospital in Birmingham since July 2023? appeared first on Healthwatch Birmingham & Solihull.

Have you been offered one of these services in the last 6 months?*

• Blood pressure checks
• Support taking medications after a hospital stay
• Support in using a new medication (including follow up)
• Referral from hospital to a stop smoking programme
• Free flu vaccine
• Birth control (‘the pill’)

*This includes if you declined the service.

Sign up here.

Please email communitypharmacy@randeurope.org or call 01223 606346 for more information.

The post Share your experiences of clinical services at local pharmacies appeared first on Healthwatch Birmingham & Solihull.