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Community Engagement Group Quarterly Report - November 2024

Meeting: Trust Board – Public Meeting

Date: 6 November 2024

Report Title: CQC Quality Improvement Plan Progress Report

Agenda Item: PUB24/11/4.5

Author: Community Engagement Group

Lead Director: Simon Chase, Chief Paramedic and Director of Quality

Purpose: Information noting

Link to CQC domain:

  • Responsive
  • Effective
  • Well Led

Link to Strategic Objective:

  • Be an exceptional place to work, volunteer and learn
  • Be excellent collaborators and innovators as system partners

Link to Strategic Risk:

  • SR2: Failure to achieve continuous quality improvements and high-quality care delivery
  • SR7: Failure to ensure a well-governed and accountable Trust

Equality Impact Assessment: No negative impact identified

Previously considered by: This is a new report; however, the submission of this report has previously been discussed at Public Board on 10 July 2024.

Recommendation: To review and provide further feedback to CEG on content.

Purpose: To give a direct reporting mechanism to the Board from the Community Engagement Group (CEG) and ensure that the patient and public voice is considered.

Executive Summary:

Overview of activity undertaken by CEG in Quarter 2:

  • Over five public events organised and attended by CEG.
  • One school event organised and attended by CEG.
  • Over five stakeholder meetings attended where CEG were able to be the voice of both the public and EEAST.
  • One young person application received to join CEG (following a school visit).

Key issues arising from Public Engagement:

  • Lack of volunteers with capacity to undertake more work and fill all the requests for public engagement that are made.

Introduction / Background:

The Community Engagement Group exists to support the Trust to increase its scope of public engagement and involvement. The group supports the Trust by running their own public engagement events in areas of health promotion, awareness of the ambulance service and what to expect when you call 999, seeking feedback or input on Trust initiatives, such as offering first aid training in conjunction with CFRs (many of the Community Engagement Group are also CFRs for the Trust).

In addition, the Community Engagement Group fulfils a “critical friend” role for the Trust. The CEG act as Ambassadors to the Trust networking and interfacing externally with other health-care and community organisations as two-way conduits to enhance our services. The CEG provides a public voice and sense-checking function, inputting into various Trust strategies and developments and attending meetings within the Trust to represent the patient and public voice.

Key Issues / Risks:

Patient and public engagement activities undertaken in last quarter. CEG Activities undertaken in Quarter 2 (July - September 2024)

  • International Paramedic Day – engagement with staff delivering snacks to various stations and EOC within the BMLK area.
  • Attendance at four community fair type events and an engagement stall in a coffee shop. These included bringing an ambulance vehicle or welfare wagon along which attracted lots of interest. Opportunity to promote the CEG and garner interest in the group, as well as educate and engage with the public and gather feedback on the service.
  • Engagement event undertaken with Loughton Bowls club to plan emergency first aid training sessions.
  • Herts Healthwatch AGM meeting attended. Opportunities to network with other voluntary groups, eg. ICB Patient Engagement Forum (PEF).
  • IPC Station audits carried out in some areas as per Trust policy.
  • External meeting with PCIEF (Public and Community Involvement, Engagement and Participation) exploring research into ‘Severe Head Injuries and Occupational Therapy management’ of patients – outcomes of research intended to result in a programme of ‘Sensory Stimulations for patient Care at Addenbrookes Hospital with roll out to family/carers and other staff involved.
  • Discussions re: CEG member supporting a local Hospice exploring the possibility of working with Specialist Paramedics working in ‘End of Life Care.’
  • Engagement day at Queen Elizabeth School 6th Form College in Luton. Organised and attended by two CEG members with assistance from various ambulance and emergency services in collaboration with school students and staff. This included Reflective Practice (RP) with students for personal learning from BLS and future education. The feedback received by CEG indicated a resounding success of the event and highlighted by EEAST in its recent Comms newsletter.
  • A National online Patient Experience and Engagement Conference with Patient Experience Manager (Surveys) and Patient and Public Engagement Manager involved a substantive presentation on the theme of co-production at EEAST which highlighted CEG inputs highlighting the CEG Workplan, Terms of Reference, Roles and Responsibilities and joint Handbook production as part of EEAST’s wider agenda. Demonstrating how co-production enhances volunteering experiences was an important message on the day. Positive responses from conference delegates and expressed interest for collaboration on co-production with the PPI Team is a notable outcome.
  • Initial liaising meeting and networking with one ICB about its Youth Council volunteers and how CEG and PPI staff might invest in a similar model across EEAST is being discussed.
  • Regular meetings with the local ICB Patient Engagement Forum (PEF). This month focussed on Acute and Urgent Care services of which EEAST is a partner.
  • Various engagement events around HWE area including the ‘Welfare Wagon taken to various local hospitals, engaging with staff, and making CEG better publicised and well known.

Trust meetings attended by CEG in last quarter

  • Presentation at the Public Board meeting on our engagement activities and wider agenda for potential contributions.
  • One CEG member was invited as part of the stakeholder/panel and participated in the new CEO interviews.
  • VAF meeting attended by CEG member to give an overview and profile of involvement activities.
  • Internal CEG meeting was held to discuss different pathways for recruiting younger members to the group.
  • Membership attendance to Patient Safety and Engagement (PSEG) internal bi-monthly meetings. Various topics as per agenda but notably concerns about patient complaints regarding ‘staff attitudes’ and what lessons are learnt. This is under constant review by Complaints review team.
  • CEG meeting in Melbourn on 26 September, attended by the Trust Chair and new CEO. The Deputy Director for Strategy, Safeguarding and Patient Safety plus the FSUG Lead who updated progress so far in their areas of developments.
  • Stakeholder meeting with the new CEO – various topics discussed.

Themes and trends arising from patient engagement events

  • There is a hunger for more of these events from the public, young people and education centres.
  • Some events have directly resulted in patient feedback which would otherwise have not been harnessed or heard.
  • Some events have directly resulted in young people being inspired to apply to become a volunteer at the Trust and are currently going through the recruitment process.

Themes and trends arising from other areas of CEG activity (eg. strategic involvement, complaints reviews, IPC audits, etc.)

  • IPC audits have directly resulted in drastic change brought in at local level to improve IPC as a direct result of CEG members finding repeated poor behaviours which was otherwise unseen.
  • Complaints reviews – enables the complaints team to think about the patient’s perspective as our feedback reminds them that the way clinicians see things differ from the expectations of the public.
  • Direct input into the next 5-year strategy enables the public to have an influence in the decisions the Trust makes about shaping the future.

CEG recruitment update

  • The working group of CEG members engaged with the PPI team exploring future options and opportunities and recruitment. Future meetings planned to refine the ideas and sustainability of CEG were discussed to take this initiative forward.
  • Following an action from the VAF. CEG members and the PPI team are working with other VAF members on volunteer recruitment and will be putting together an action plan with a specific focus on CEG membership recruitment. This will focus on geographical spread, and community representation, in addition to the recruitment of younger members.

Issues CEG wish to escalate to the Board

  • Closer working with the different directorates to support the Trust’s key goals and strategies and utilise members expertise and specialist skills-set will add value to EEAST and volunteers’ satisfaction.
  • Please could we have cross-departmental support for recruitment to our Community Engagement Group to allow us to further the good work and increase the representation of EEAST out to the public and back from the public to EEAST.

Options:

N/A

Summary:

This first report shows the level of engagement undertaken by the CEG and should be celebrated and recognised that there is more work to be done. The CEG welcome the opportunity to raise their work at Trust Board and look forward to receiving feedback on the first report in how to strengthen this.

Trust board

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