Wheelchair services engagement
Over the past few years, the CCGs in Kirklees and Calderdale have been working with Healthwatch, voluntary and community sector organisations and service users to listen to their experiences of using the wheelchair service and to work together to develop a new service.
Timeline
May 2017 – in response to concerns raised by patients and local support groups, Healthwatch Kirklees carried out engagement to gain feedback about the service. The feedback highlighted real concerns.
September 2017 – in response to the Healthwatch engagement, the CCGs worked with the provider to engage with service users. We wrote to all services users who had used the service in the last two years and circulated a survey to key stakeholders.
People told us there were a number of improvements needed to ensure the service was meeting the needs of all service users. Timely access, good information and communication were the most reported improvements required.
Using the feedback we worked with the service provider to develop an improvement plan. This included clearing waiting lists, addressing delays in the length of time taken to assess and provide equipment, and better communication. The CCGs provided additional funding to support this work.
However, the findings also highlighted a number of areas that could not be resolved with service improvement so further conversations took place to identify the need for a new service specification.
May to July 2018 – to support the development of a new service specification we worked with local support groups including Parents of Children with Additional Needs Making a Difference in Kirklees (PCAN), Voluntary Action Calderdale, Community Voices in Kirklees, engagement champions in Calderdale, wheelchair users and their families, schools, community groups and professionals across the district. The engagement included two stakeholder events. PCAN gathered information from this engagement and published a report of findings.
October 2018 – service users were invited to a co-production workshop to help design key aspects of the service specification.
December 2018 to May 2019 – the CCGs undertook a procurement process using the new service specification. As part of this we set up a reference group that included service users and carers. The group was involved throughout the procurement process.
October 2019 – the new provider has developed its own service user engagement activity that reflects the learning and experience gained over during this process.
You can find out more about this work in the following video: