Healthwatch Surrey Annual Report 2016-17



Section: Contents

Message from our Chair and Chief Executive	4
We made substantial progress during the year	6
Local people have benefitted	7
What we do	8
Your views are making a difference	10
We help you find the answers	14
Together we are changing things for the better	16
It starts with you	24
Our plans for next year	26
Our people	28
Our finances	30
Contact us	32

Section: Message from 
our Chair and Chief 
Executive


The issues and problems we 
now face in health and social 
care are so complex, that no 
single body or group can 
possibly solve them alone - it 
will take all of us working 
effectively together.

Welcome to the 2016/17 Annual Report 
from Healthwatch Surrey.  We are an 
independent organisation that exists to 
give the people of Surrey a voice to 
improve, shape and get the best out of 
health and social care services.   
The NHS and social care are under great 
pressure across the country, and Surrey is 
no exception. The way health and social 
care services are planned and delivered is 
having to change in order to meet ever-
increasing demands within challenging 
financial constraints. Historic practices and 
barriers between organisations are being 
confronted and, in the last year, the 
development of Sustainability and 
Transformation Plans (STPs) represents the 
latest initiative to help transform the very 
complex health and social care system. 
As the system transforms it is essential that 
people’s views, needs and interests are at 
the very heart of decisions about services 
and changes made to them. Healthwatch 
Surrey believes that commissioners and 
providers working closely with patients and 
the public is the best way to ensure that 
these services are effective, efficient and 
meet people’s real needs. This 
involvement must not be tokenistic. 
Rather, it has to be part of a fundamental 
shift in health and social care culture that 
enables everyone to think and act in co-
ordinated and fully user-focussed ways. 
Healthwatch Surrey’s role in this 
transformation is to ensure local people’s 
voices are heard. We already gather 
thousands of experiences from people each 
year and positively influence change by 
representing them to health and social 
care commissioners and providers across 
the County. We also challenge the system 
when we sense they are paying too little 
time and attention to people’s 
requirements and involvement in system 
changes.  
Since our creation in 2013, we have 
focused on building strong and trusting 
relationships with our system partners. We 
feed back and challenge, based on what 
we’ve heard from the public, and 
sometimes this means having difficult 
conversations. These are only effective 
when trust and mutual respect exists. As 
our recent Reflective Review 
demonstrates, we do have many good and 
trusting relationships and are listened to by 
many stakeholders who work constructively 
with us. We sincerely thank those that do, 
while encouraging those who remain wary, 
perhaps holding us at arms-length, to 
reconsider. The issues and problems we 
now face in health and social care are so 
complex, that no single body or group can 
possibly solve them alone. It will take all of 
us working effectively together – and 
Healthwatch Surrey is here to help.
A great deal has been achieved for the 
people of Surrey and we are justly proud of 
our contribution. Our initiatives have led to 
improved activities being offered at care 
homes, helped ensure that Safe Havens 
remain as a vital support for people 
experiencing mental health crisis and 
prompted regulatory visits to care homes 
and hospital wards with follow-up actions 
being mandated. We have provided an 
independent route for both good and bad 
feedback, have called out poor practice, 
and have held service providers and 
commissioners to account. A wide range of 
people’s experiences has been fed back to 
commissioners and providers, who have 
either prompted or directly taken 
corrective action. In addition, over 2,000 
people have been helped through provision 
of information and advice, and around 
another 200 through our NHS Advocacy 
service. 
Thanks for these achievements go to our 
dedicated team - including our staff, 
volunteers and board members. They have 
collected people’s stories and developed 
relationships of influence with system 
partners, as well as contributing to internal 
change at Healthwatch Surrey. Our 
operational review of roles and structure 
has been successfully implemented and we 
pay tribute to each person for their 
contribution. We will continue to review 
our operations to ensure that we are as 
efficient and flexible as possible, 
especially as changes occur in the health 
and social care system around us.
Thanks also go to the many members of 
Surrey’s health and social care system who 
have worked closely with us. The mutual 
benefits being delivered from our joint 
working continue to grow and validate our 
approach. We will continue to explore with 
you opportunities to capture the views of 
local people to feed into your initiatives in 
the most impactful and relevant way.  
Finally, we say our biggest, “THANK YOU!” 
to the people of Surrey, who have in so 
many different ways shared their 
experiences with us. We value the trust 
placed in us and know we have more to do 
on your behalf. All at Healthwatch Surrey 
will continue to do our very best to 
represent your views.

Peter Gordon, Chair 
Kate Scribbins, Chief Executive




Section: We made substantial 
progress during the year

This year  
we’ve reached  
127,000 people on 
social media

Our volunteers have 
contributed over 1,000 hours 
and have been fundamental to 
every aspect of our work

We helped 2,322 people with 
information, advice and 
independent health 
complaints advocacy.

Our reports have tackled 
issues ranging from person-
centred care in care homes to 
mental health support 
services

We’ve captured 2,991 
experiences of local services 
on our database

We shared more than 100 
experiences with the Care 
Quality Commission (CQC)

Title: Local people have benefitted


Improvements to care homes
The result of our care home visits across Surrey meant that individual care homes, Surrey 
County Council and the regulator are all acting on our findings. This will result in a 
broader and better range of activities for residents and improved quality of life.

People in mental health crisis continue to get vital support
Our research with people using Safe Havens in Surrey highlighted to decision makers how 
vital this service is to users and was a key piece of evidence in the decision to continue 
funding the Safe Havens.  

Healthwatch visit leads to regulator action
Safety concerns raised by Healthwatch volunteers during a visit to a care home prompted 
a CQC inspection and subsequent closure of the home. The CQC said: “the information 
passed to us … was invaluable and led to our early inspection where we found very 
similar concerns and more, and are taking enforcement action …”

Improvements to GP booking system
Patients told us about problems in booking appointments at one particular GP surgery, 
where the system had changed. We escalated this to NHS England and as a result 
improvements have been made. NHS England said: “thank you for drawing the patients’ 
concerns to our attention so that we can follow these issues up with the practice …”

Using public experiences to improve services
We’ve shared many experiences with commissioners across Surrey, and more than 100 
directly with the CQC, all resulting from information shared by the public. To take just 
two examples: 
?	A relative shared serious concerns with us about the care of her elderly uncle on a 
ward at Epsom hospital and as a result the regulator has investigated and the 
commissioner has visited the service. 
?	We reported what we’d heard about a lack of wheelchairs at Ashford Hospital and 
new wheelchairs have now been ordered. 


Section: What we do

Our mission
Healthwatch Surrey is an 
independent organisation that 
gives the people of Surrey a 
voice to improve, shape and 
get the best from health and 
social care services by 
empowering people and 
communities.  
?	We enable people to share views 
and concerns about local health and 
social care services.
?	We provide evidence-based 
feedback to commissioners and 
providers to influence, inform and, 
if necessary, challenge decisions and 
plans.
?	We carry out investigations into 
specific areas of concern and make 
recommendations for change.
?	We provide, or signpost to, 
information about local services and 
how to access them.
?	We provide advocacy for people 
with complaints about the NHS.
Healthwatch Surrey is a small team 
covering a large area, and a complex 
health and social care landscape, so we 
count on the support of our great team of 
volunteers to help us engage with people, 
build relationships based on local 
knowledge, and attend meetings in order 
to shape and challenge decisions about 
services.

Our vision 

We have four vision statements that 
encapsulate how we achieve our mission:
?	Healthwatch Surrey is the 
respected, trusted and credible 
champion of the consumer for health 
and social care in Surrey. 
?	Healthwatch Surrey’s role, function 
and services are known, understood 
and valued by consumers and 
therefore they readily contact us. 
?	Our influencing is based on sound 
evidence, knowledge and insight.  
?	As a social enterprise we have 
secured a growing and sustainable 
future.
(Photo)Engagement Officer Jade at Surrey History 
Centre 
 

 
 

Our priorities

No local Healthwatch can possibly work on 
all issues across health and social care at 
once. We have to prioritise and we do this 
in an open and transparent way.  In 
addition to our work engaging with the 
public and sharing what we’ve heard with 
decision-makers, the priorities we worked 
on this year were:
?	Amplifying the voice of care home 
residents
?	Investigating the experience of 
hospital discharge
?	Early intervention in mental health
?	Improving the experience of 
making a GP appointment
?	Making it easier to make an NHS 
complaint.


 
(photo) Our Healthwatch Team (top, from left to right): Jacquie Pond, Jade Parkes, Natallie Hoare, 
Matthew Parris, Lisa Sian, Lauren ter Kuile (bottom row) Erika Lorimer, Natasha Ward, Kate 
Scribbins, Samantha Botsford. 
 
We would like to thank the members of the staff team who have left us in the last year: Julie 
Dallison, Sonali Florence, Katherine Leach and Bob Hall.







Section: Your views are making a difference


Listening to your views

We held 60 events in 2016/17 and attended 
many more events run by partner 
organisations.
We spoke to people in focus groups, 
support groups, awareness events, 
supermarkets, high streets, hospitals, GP 
surgeries, SureStart centres, corporate 
offices, community centres, day centres, 
family fun days and targeted provider 
events.
?	We visited the Young Person’s Safe 
Haven in Aldershot to speak to 
children/ young people experiencing 
mental ill-health. We also spoke to 
their families.
?	We visited SureStart Children’s 
Centres to talk to parents about 
their experiences of local services, 
as well as their children’s 
experiences of GPs, hospitals and 
more.
?	We visited Dementia groups and day 
centres to talk to vulnerable older 
people about their experiences of 
local services.
?	We spoke to people in the BAME 
community about their health 
inequalities and what we could do to 
help improve their experiences of 
local services.

We attended an event to hear experiences 
of the Gypsy, Roma, Traveller community 
and gained a better understanding of the 
health inequalities they face, including an 
increased amount of stillbirths and a poor 
uptake of cancer screenings

Title: What we’ve heard
This year you shared 2,991 individual 
experiences with us
29% of these were positive
66% of these were negative.

The services we have heard most positively 
and negatively about in the last year:

Positive*:
Cardiology
Nursing Care Homes
X-rays
Negative*:
Mental Health (Child & 
Adolescent)
Urology
Adult Social Care

*of services mentioned at least once a month


The most frequently mentioned topics 
were: follow up care and support, getting 
an initial appointment and waiting within a 
service waiting times.


In focus: Safe Havens are ‘Keeping the Light on’


?	‘Keeping the Light on’ was a key 
piece of evidence in the decision to 
continue funding Safe Havens at 
Redhill and Epsom for another year. 
?	Some Safe Havens have adopted 
users’ feedback into their 
marketing, such as showing a 
photograph of the inside of the Safe 
Haven so users know what to expect
?	We empowered a Safe Haven user to 
speak to BBC Surrey to share her 
experience of Safe Haven Epsom.
“I would say that it’s a place that 
you can go to prevent self-harm, 
to prevent a crisis going further”
“Anna” on Safe Havens, BBC Surrey 
Breakfast

?	We heard about mental health 
facilities across Surrey as well as the 
Safe Havens.
?	We learnt how to engage with 
people experiencing mental ill-
health, and how important building 
trust is when asking the public to 
share experiences which are painful 
for them to talk about. We will build 
this learning into how we talk to 
people in the year ahead to ensure 
we are sensitive to their needs.
?	One user shared her concerns about 
a recent assault outside one of the 
centres. We told commissioners 
about this and they assured us that 
the risk assessment would be 
updated and the learning shared 
with all Safe Havens.


Students become ‘Healthwatch for a Day’


In March, we worked with staff and 
students at Magna Carta School in Staines 
on an initiative involving the whole school 
community as part of a school wellbeing 
week, with 12 students volunteering to be 
Healthwatch Champions for a day.
The aim of the day was for the student 
Healthwatch Champions to speak to other 
students and staff about what they think 
about local health and social care services. 
Students could also complete a short 
postcard survey about their feelings and 
anxieties and where they go to get 
support. 
197 postcards were completed and the 
results will be presented back to the school 
this summer. 
Magna Carta student Healthwatch Champions
 
 


Raising awareness
As Healthwatch Surrey exists to give 
people a voice, it is crucial that we do 
everything we can to build awareness and 
make it easy for people to share their 
experiences.

The Healthwatch Surrey website, social 
media and e-bulletin remain key tools in 
how we communicate with the public and 
we continue to develop these channels so 
that more people hear about Healthwatch 
and the work we do.

127,000 people reached using social media
2,917 Twitter Followers
222 Facebook Likes
12,453 visitors to our website
680 e-bulletin subscribers

We have continued to build our profile 
with local and regional media, sharing our 
reports and commenting on health and 
social care topics. This has included 10 
local radio interviews and our first TV 
interview, on BBC South Today. 

We have undertaken projects with the 
Quality Assurance team at Surrey County 
Council, Patient Advice and Liaison 
services (PALS) to build awareness with 
local people and health and social care 
professionals. 

The development of our new 
communications strategy in 2016 meant 
shorter, more focussed campaigns 
featuring each of our key priority areas. 

This year, we are developing an 
overarching awareness raising strategy 
which begins in July with a local radio and 
online campaign supported by social media 
and coincides with the launch of our new 
website.

What we’ve learnt from 
visiting services

In 2016, we secured NHS England funding 
to put together a resource to support the 
adoption of the NHS Accessible Information 
Standard. We co-designed a toolkit with 
local people and user groups to audit 
compliance with the standard, which was 
then shared with all local Healthwatch. As 
a result of these pilot visits, one GP 
surgery has now “purchased an additional 
mobile induction loop and [promoted to 
patients with] larger posters in all clinical 
rooms. So thank you for highlighting 
this...” 

In early 2017, we completed a series of 
Enter & View visits to care homes to listen 
to the views of residents. See page 24 for 
more information about what we learned, 
and what action was taken by service 
providers, the CQC and Surrey County 
Council as a result of our findings.
18 people are currently trained to 
undertake Enter & View visits on behalf of 
Healthwatch Surrey. A full list of these 
individuals is available on our website. 
Our Escalations Panel, which is made up of 
staff and volunteers, meets monthly. The 
panel examines what we have heard about 
services which are on our radar as having 
more negative experiences than others, as 
well as individual experiences of serious 
concern. There are a range of actions that 
have been taken, including escalation to 
Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) 
service providers, Healthwatch England, 
and NHS England. 

The panel raised concerns about a GP 
surgery, that is due to close and was still 
registering new patients and NHS England 
have taken steps to ensure that this does 
not continue.

Section: We help  
you find the  
answers


Title: How we have helped the 
community access the care 
they need

During the last year we have helped 
2,322 people gain information and advice 
through our Advocacy service, Helpdesk 
and partnership with Citizens Advice.  

Through these services we have helped 
individuals, families and carers access local 
services and empowered them with the 
information needed to take control of their 
own health and social care. 

Case Study: Helping to relieve concerns about 
leaving hospital

Victoria* contacted the Healthwatch Surrey 
Helpdesk with concerns about what would 
happen to her after she is discharged 
following a scheduled operation.  She was 
concerned about being discharged without 
support at home. Victoria explained that 
the operation was a major one and 
required her to keep her back straight for 
at least two weeks. She said that she had 
had a pre-op assessment but found the 
information she was given around her 
discharge quite worrying. Victoria reported 
that she was told that she may travel home 
lying down. She has no local family so was 
worried about managing on her own. 
The Helpdesk reassured Victoria that each 
hospital has a discharge policy and she 
would be assessed by the hospital social 
work team who would look at the support 
she would need to be discharged home 
safely. The Helpdesk also advised that she 
could get a copy of discharge policy from 
the ward manager or Patient Advice Liaison 
Services (PALS) and suggested she could 
speak to PALS about her concerns while she 
was on the ward. The different options of 
support that may be offered to her were 
also discussed.

Case Study: Support with making a complaint

Carol* is a mother living in Surrey who has 
a daughter who is a drug addict, with 
mental health problems, living in Bradford. 
Carol contacted our free Independent 
Health Complaints Advocacy Service to get 
help with making a complaint against 
Bradford Hospital following poor treatment 
her daughter received in their care. She 
had not received adequate responses to 
her queries raised directly with the 
hospital. 

Carol was supported by an NHS advocate to 
communicate with Bradford Hospital. A 
local resolution meeting was held during 
which the advocate put forward Carol’s 
views and questions. Carol felt that the 
information provided in this meeting was 
not satisfactory so our advocate supported 
her to contact the Parliamentary and 
Health Service Ombudsman. A report has 
now been submitted and Carol is awaiting 
a response. 
Carol’s family now feel that they have 
been listened to and that their concerns 
have been voiced. 


Section: Together we are changing  
things for the better


Title: How your experiences are 
helping influence change

Your views and experiences have informed 
a number of reports and recommendations 
this year. We have shared and presented 
these to regulators, providers and 
commissioners of health and care services, 
to suggest how things might be improved. 

Our reports include:
My Way, Every Day (January 2017) 
Volunteers visited 25 care homes to speak 
to residents about what it is like to live in 
a care home and how their individual 
wishes and needs are taken into account on 
a daily basis. 
Our report highlighted inconsistencies in 
how activities are provided. One example 
was of a man with dementia and physical 
disabilities who said he liked watching 
Question Time but didn’t get to watch it in 
the care home, as the staff had not 
understood his wishes or been able to fulfil 
them.
We called on commissioners and providers 
to respond to the recommendations. 93 
care homes and 5 commissioners responded 
to our recommendations with a number of 
positive improvements including:
 “Limegrove, [which is one of the 
care homes visited] has a weekly 
bus trip now taking place.”
Rob Martin, Anchor Care Homes
More information about our work with care 
homes can be found on p. 25.

Keeping the Light On (March 2017)
Safe Havens are drop-in out of hours 
centres which support people experiencing 
mental health crisis and their carers. 
‘Keeping the Light on’ summarised the 
mental health experiences shared with us 
during our visits to 7 Safe Havens (also 
known as Crisis Cafés) in Surrey and 
surrounding areas. 
Through this report, service users have 
been able to safeguard the future of Safe 
Havens in the county for at least another 
year.
“…This report clearly highlights 
that Safe Havens are one of the 
best environments for supporting 
people through a mental health 
crisis. So let’s make sure that the 
Safe Haven light keeps shining 
brightly…”
Lynne Dossetter, Operations Manager, 
Corner House (Woking Safe Haven)

More information about our work with Safe 
Haven users can be found on p. 12.


Patient Participation Group (PPG) 
Fact Finder (2016)

PPGs can be an invaluable source of 
patient feedback for GPs. Even though all 
practices are required to have a PPG, they 
are set up very differently. Our volunteers 
helped us to conduct interviews with 12 
PPGs across the county. The results from 
these interviews gave us a deeper 
understanding about what works well, 
areas that need improvement and some of 
the barriers faced when setting up and 
maintaining a PPG. These findings and 
examples of best practice are now a 
resource to be shared with other PPGs.
We will continue to work closely with them 
in 2017/18 to build their capacity, raise 
awareness of Healthwatch and explore 
ways in which we can work together. 

Improving access to Independent 
Health Complaints Advocacy 
(2016)

As a common gateway to the complaints 
process, it is important that Patient Advice 
and Liaison Services (PALS) are able to 
correctly signpost to the Independent 
Health Complaints Advocacy Service 
(IHCA). IHCA offers free independent 
support with making a complaint. This 
year, volunteers have been working with 
PALS across the county to raise awareness 
of the IHCA service and Healthwatch Surrey 
in acute and community hospitals.
Improvements agreed with providers 
included:
?	Adding information about 
Healthwatch Surrey into their 
generic or PALS or complaints 
leaflets and letters
?	Making it as easy as possible to make 
complaints, particularly by 
telephone for those receiving care 
at home.

Safety concerns when people leave 
hospital

Throughout the year, we heard a number 
of alarming experiences about being 
discharged from hospital in an unsafe way. 
We reported this to the Surrey 
Safeguarding Adults Board. Our evidence 
combined with other intelligence led the 
Board to create a ‘Hospital Discharge 
Panel’ to look closely at how services have 
delivered their safeguarding 
responsibilities in Surrey.
In our report, we recommended some key 
lines of inquiry for the panel focussing on 
the patient perspective.
Our report provided the panel with 
valuable patient experiences from an 
independent source and was cited 
throughout the panel’s enquiries. 

Regular reports to health and 
social care commissioners 

We’ve worked hard on our relationships 
with health and social care commissioners 
this year. All of them are now meeting 
with us regularly and many are asking for 
these meetings to be more frequent, 
demonstrating the value that Healthwatch 
Surrey is bringing by sharing what we’ve 
heard from local people.
These meetings include a 6-monthly report 
into the themes we are hearing about 
services in each area.
On occasion individual anonymised cases 
are escalated to the commissioning 
organisation to investigate.
The information we share is combined with 
other intelligence held by commissioners so 
they can assure themselves that services 
are delivering good outcomes and 
experience for local people.

Together with our volunteers, we also 
attend CCG patient experience groups.  It 
is important to ensure that these groups 
are not tokenistic talking shops, and that a 
wide range of voices can be heard, it is 
part of our job to help make that happen.

"The experiences that 
Healthwatch Surrey share with us 
remind us why we're all 
here...they sensitise us to the 
experiences people are having 
day-to-day.”

Helen Collins, Associate Director of 
Quality and Improvement, NHS Guildford 
and Waverley Clinical Commissioning 
Group

“Healthwatch Surrey have been an active 
and valued partner within Surrey County 
Council’s multi-agency quality assurance 
information sharing processes … [they 
have] provided a set of valuable 
observations on and recommendations 
regarding the quality of provision of care 
homes in Surrey.”  
 
Julian Temblett-Wood, Quality 
Assurance Manager, Adult Social Care,  
Surrey County Council

Title: Working with other 
organisations

Care Quality Commission (CQC)

This year we have met regularly and 
developed a close working relationship 
with the Care Quality Commission. The 
meetings, held quarterly, allow us to share 
information and evidence relating to 
experiences we have gathered about 
services providers, including: GPs, 
hospitals, mental health and adult social 
care. We both also share updates on the 
activity for the forthcoming quarter, to 
allow us to feed in our evidence relating to 
any specific inspections. 
The aim for the next year is to continue to 
build on this relationship and ensure we 
are in a position to best complement and 
support local CQC monitoring, inspection 
and regulatory activities.

“Within CQC and Surrey in particular we 
welcome the close working relationship we 
have developed with Healthwatch and 
we’re really hopeful that it continues.”
 Neil Cox, Adult Social Care Inspection 
Manager, Care Quality Commission

Quality Surveillance Group (QSG)

The QSG brings together different parts of 
the healthcare system to identify risks to 
quality of care early. In January, we 
escalated two concerning experiences 
about the Royal Surrey County Hospital 
which led to additional scrutiny by the 
commissioner.

“Healthwatch Surrey has been a full 
member of the NHS England Quality 
Surveillance Group (QSG) for Surrey & 
Sussex and provides an important source of 
information and intelligence on providers 
in their area which they regularly share as 
members of the QSG, particularly where 
there are concerns.  The intelligence they 
have provided has proved to be a valuable 
contribution to identifying the level of risk 
in a number of providers across Surrey.”
Felicity Cox, Chair of Surrey and Sussex 
QSG, NHS England 

Wellbeing and Health Scrutiny 
Board (WHSB) 

The WHSB reviews and scrutinises health 
services commissioned or delivered in the 
authority’s area. In September, we 
challenged the board on the impact of the 
proposed stroke service change on people 
in certain areas of Surrey. This resulted in 
an update to the board which included 
information on how high risk groups were 
identified and consulted on the proposals.

“Healthwatch Surrey have played an active 
role in the work of Surrey County Council's 
Wellbeing and Health Scrutiny Board … 
making significant contributions in terms 
of both penetrating questions posed to 
witnesses, and provision of additional 
relevant information. They have also 
contributed significantly to some key 
reviews related to the South East Coast 
Ambulance service and Surrey & Borders 
Partnership Trust’s decision to relocate 
Mental Health Wards from Epsom to 
Chertsey.”
Bill Chapman, Chair, WHSB

Healthwatch England and local 
Healthwatch 

All our reports are published on the 
Healthwatch Surrey website and we share 
these directly with Healthwatch England. 
We have made no formal escalations to 
Healthwatch England this year.
We are pleased to be able to work closely 
with other local Healthwatch in our region, 
particularly to support and seek assurance 
from our shared ambulance service that 
improvements are being made, particularly 
around how the service involves patients in 
decision making. 
We also worked with local Healthwatch 
around Frimley Health NHS Foundation 
Trust, including Healthwatch Windsor, 
Ascot & Maidenhead, Buckinghamshire and 
Slough, to find out about people’s 
experience of leaving hospital. 42 of 120 
respondents to our survey were from 
Surrey. The report will be published in 
summer 2017 and the findings will inform 
further work on this priority. 

Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB)

The Surrey Health and Wellbeing Board 
works to improve the health and wellbeing 
of the people of Surrey.  It includes 
commissioners from NHS, public health, 
social care, local councillors and user 
representatives. Our representative on the 
HWB is supported to be an effective 
member through regular briefings and pre-
meetings with the staff team, to identify 
the evidence and insight we can share.

“Healthwatch Surrey are an active 
member of the Surrey Health and 
Wellbeing Board. Their contribution is 
highly valued and they are a key member 
in ensuring residents views are considered 
by the Board … they have continued to 
challenge the Board to ensure residents 
have access to health and wellbeing 
services at the right time and in the right 
place … We look forward to continuing to 
work in partnership with Healthwatch 
Surrey over the coming year to do things 
differently to improve health and 
wellbeing outcomes for Surrey residents.”  

Helyn Clack, Cabinet Member for Health, 
Surrey County Council


Title:Working with our community

Community Cash Fund 2016/17

In August we launched our second 
Healthwatch Surrey Community Cash Fund, 
encouraging local community groups, 
organisations, voluntary and faith groups to 
submit applications for our small grant 
scheme.

Through the Community Cash Fund 
initiative we work hard to support well-
being projects, bringing people together in 
a social and healthy way, to talk about 
their experiences of health and social care 
services.
Some of our winners included –
?	Healthy lifestyle workshop 
supporting stay-at-home young 
mothers from the South Asian 
community.
?	Knitting and social group supporting 
people living with dementia.
?	Fit-and-fun sessions to develop an 
educational support group for dads 
and their children.

“Come Knit with me” project for carers of 
loved ones with dementia
?	Health and wellbeing forum group so 
that the Nepalese community can 
access relevant services in health 
and social care. 
?	A sensory equipment programme to 
break down interactive barriers and 
connect people living with learning 
disabilities and complex needs.
?	Happy healthy workshops providing 
education for children and young 
people affected by anxiety, exam 
stress, bereavement or family 
breakdown. 
?	Keeping fit church group with table 
tennis at the heart of activities in a 
friendly and fun environment.
?	The set-up of a specific service user 
group to capture experiences of 
adults affected by domestic abuse 
and shared with commissioners on 
needs within the East Surrey area.

All the project initiatives will be 
showcased at our Let’s Celebrate event in 
October 2017. All of the winners are 
working to sustain and continue with these 
projects.

Voice Network

93 people from organisations, charities and 
support services took part in our Voice 
Network to bring the needs and 
experiences of their service users to our 
attention. 
The Voice Network was facilitated in 
partnership with Surrey Community Action, 
who also supported us to organise a ‘Let’s 
Celebrate’ event for our Community Cash 
Fund Winners of 2015/16 in September.  
The winners presented their projects to an 
audience at Dorking Halls, which included 
an Aphasia awareness session, seated 
dance sessions for older people and a film 
made by young people about their mental 
health experiences.

Title: Supporting local people to 
help shape services

Volunteering

Through volunteering Healthwatch Surrey 
has provided local people the opportunity 
to use their skills, knowledge and 
experience to shape their local health and 
care services and support Healthwatch 
Surrey in fulfilling our statutory activities. 
In the last year, volunteers have 
contributed over 1000 hours and been 
involved in a large array of projects, 
including engaging with the public from 
their local communities, and reporting 
these opinions and experiences back to 
commissioners via CCG meetings and other 
meetings they have attended on our 
behalf. 

They have also supported us with our 
project work. They played a vital part in 
the care homes project by helping to carry 
out 25 Enter & View visits in care homes 
across Surrey. 

We’ve also been co-designing a pioneering 
Patient Leaders programme which puts 
local people at the heart of NHS 
improvement and innovation programmes. 
Having recruited six Patient Leaders who 
have the courage to speak up in a room of 
‘experts’, we have supported them to 
undertake roles working alongside doctors, 
nurses and managers in the NHS in order to 
help re-design services. They provide 
another important and independent 
perspective to discussions, as well as 
contributing their own ideas and drawing 
upon Healthwatch Surrey’s evidence.
This initiative has been possible thanks to 
our collaboration with the local Academic 
Health Science Network and Centre for 
Patient Leadership, through which we have 
accessed funding from the NHS Leadership 
Academy and support from The Kings Fund.
In March, four Patient Leaders were 
involved in the launch event of the ‘Safe 
Discharge and Transfers’ project. They 
were able to help participants reflect on 
the impact of poor discharge on patients, 
their families and carers. They were also 
involved in facilitation throughout. 
 

“Our partnership with 
Healthwatch Surrey over the last 
year has been key [to working 
collaboratively with patients] and 
to date they have provided a 
range of patient insights and 
reports relating to local 
experiences of the discharge 
process, supported our launch 
event with stories direct from 
patients and have become an 
instrumental part of our Core 
Reference Group for the project.” 

Emma Cox, Programme Manager, Kent 
Surrey and Sussex Academic Health 
Science Network

We asked our volunteer, Jill Bowman, to 
tell us about her volunteering experience:

“As a nurse, I wanted to get involved with 
something to do with health and be able 
to give something back to my local 
community. I found out about Healthwatch 
at my Patient Participation Group … It 
sounded really interesting. I am naturally 
nosy and I wanted a better understanding 
of how my local health and care services 
worked.
I am in the Enter & View team and have 
taken part in 4 visits so far. It was 
particularly interesting to visit care homes 
as my mum was going into a care home at 
the time so for me it was useful to see 
how others worked. 
I’m delighted to be a Patient Leader 
within the Safe Discharge and Transfer 
group. For me the key point I will be 
focussing on, is that patients are 
discharged in a timely fashion and feel 
confident in wherever they are discharged 
to.”






Section: It starts with you

 
Thanks to Jane and Janice, 13 
adults with dementia are now 
receiving safe and effective 
support from local care 
homes.

Jane and Janice were part the team of 
volunteers that carried out 25 visits to care 
homes in Surrey from September to 
November 2016 to find out more about the 
provision of meaningful activities. Before 
our visits, a lady who was living in one of 
the care homes had reported issues to the 
manager of her care home, which she felt 
had not been adequately addressed.
Within the same care home, Jane and 
Janice documented observations that there 
was a pervasive smell of urine and there 
was some faeces in one of the corridors.
On the same day of the visit we reported 
these observations to the Care Quality 
Commission (CQC) and the local inspector 
organised a visit for two days later. During 
that visit the service was judged as being 
inadequate in four of five domains: caring, 
safe, effective and well-led.

They also found:
?	The service had not made all 
necessary checks on staff
?	Medicines were not managed safely
?	There was a pervasive smell of urine 
?	Beds were infested with bed bugs
?	People did not have access to 
meaningful activities
 


 
This led the CQC to take enforcement 
action and the care home has since been 
closed. The residents have moved on to 
live in safer and more caring 
environments.

The team of volunteers that took part in 
this programme have also supported 
improvements in the provision of activities 
in Surrey care homes including;
?	Local Care Home Forums (which 
seek to share best practice amongst 
services) have added activities as a 
topic to their agendas.
?	Commissioners are asking care 
homes to make pledges to improve 
the provision of activities and report 
back via the Forum.
?	Surrey County Council are collating 
all information about local transport 
schemes and sharing these with care 
homes and investigating the extent 
to which residents in smaller homes 
(less than 20 residents), without 
activities coordinators, participate 
in activities.

“We have increased the number of 
hours available to dedicated 
activities co-ordinators and we 
now employ two people that help 
co-ordinate activities.”

Martin Garbett, The Whiteley Homes 
Trust
 
“All staff have attended further 
training on person-centred care.”

Angela Sohun, Southlands Rest Home



Section: Our plans for next year 


What next?

Our priorities run for a three-year cycle as 
the issues we work on are too complex to 
complete in one year.  Therefore most of 
our priorities will carry forward into 
2017/18. We will be working with 
commissioners to establish how our 
expertise in talking to service users, 
families and carers can be most impactful 
in our priority areas in the year ahead.
Access to GP appointments remains  a high 
priority for local people
The issues we will concentrate on are: 
?	Amplifying the voice of care home 
residents
?	Early intervention in mental health
?	Investigating the experience of 
hospital discharge
?	Improving access to GPs and primary 
care.

Over the last year we’ve made it easier for 
people to make NHS complaints by raising 
the profile of Healthwatch Surrey and 
Independent Health Complaints Advocacy 
within hospitals and ensuring information 
about the complaints process is as clear as 
possible on their websites and leaflets. 
Although we will no longer work on 
complaints as a priority this year, we will 
continue to support people through the 
process via our Advocacy service, and 
escalate poor practice when we find it. 
We will focus on engaging with the 
following groups: people who use sexual 
health services, Gypsy Roma Traveller 
Communities, children who use speech and 
language therapy services and adults with 
learning disabilities. In addition we will 
ensure that we visit all areas of Surrey to 
gather experiences from the public. 

We have a real focus on raising awareness 
of Healthwatch Surrey with the public and 
with decision-makers.  We will build on the 
increased media profile we’ve established 
this year by finding more ways to get the 
media interested in our work. We will get 
out and about more across the districts and 
boroughs of Surrey to explain what we do.
We already have some fantastic and 
dedicated volunteers working for us and 
this year we will start to develop local 
teams of volunteers to help us talk to the 
public, gather evidence, build relationships 
and feed that evidence back to local 
decision-makers.

Sustainability and Transformation Plans 
will continue to dominate planning for the 
future of services and we will continue to 
press for genuine and early involvement of 
patients and the public in developing 
plans.  Recruitment and support of Patient 
Leaders will form a key part of this.
We will continue to have regular meetings 
with commissioners and CQC to share our 
evidence and use our Escalations Panel to 
find the most effective ways to have an 
impact, and get the best outcomes for 
local people.?

Section: Our people


Title: Decision-making
Healthwatch Surrey C.I.C is governed by a 
Board which has a majority of independent 
Non-Executive Directors. The Board meets 
in public quarterly and members of the 
public are encouraged to attend and ask 
questions. 
The Board makes decisions about 
Healthwatch Surrey’s strategy and 
priorities. The members of the 
Healthwatch Surrey board are:
?	Peter Gordon (Chair)
?	Jason Davies (Deputy Chair)
?	Deborah Mechaneck
?	Wanda Jay
?	Lynne Omar
?	Kary Backhouse
?	Richard Davy, Member Nominated 
Director for Surrey Independent 
Living Council
?	Mark Sharman, Member Nominated 
Director for Help and Care
?	Laurence Oates, Member Nominated 
Director for Citizens Advice Surrey.



Towards the end of the year we will review 
our thematic priorities.  What we’ve heard 
from the people of Surrey will continue to 
be the driving force behind our priorities, 
but we will combine this with consultation 
with key stakeholders and an assessment of 
emerging issues nationally, to ensure we 
have a balanced view.  
It is also important that we consider issues 
and services we are not hearing about in 
setting our priorities as we cannot assume 
this means all is well.  Our volunteers will 
be involved in this review and will help 
come up with a shortlist for final decision 
by our Board in public.  We will continue to 
have a mechanism whereby any member of 
the public can put forward an idea for a 
project via our website.
 
 

Section: Our finances

Below is a summary of Healthwatch 
Surrey’s financial activity (subject to 
independent audit) for the year 2016/17.

Income
£
Funding received from local 
authority to deliver local 
Healthwatch statutory 
activities and Independent 
Health Complaints Advocacy
632,928

Additional income 
24,850

Total income
664,088

Expenditure £

Operational costs
449,109

Staffing costs
208,350

Office costs
25,731

Total expenditure
683,190

Balance brought forward
(19,102)

Note to 2016-2017 figures

The end of year balance for 2015-2016 was 
a surplus of £88,543, from which the Board 
agreed to use £55,520 to meet the 
requirements of the company’s reserves 
policy (see below) and the remaining 
£33,023 was to be used towards the costs 
of carrying out its work plan in 2016/17. 
The £33,023 was spent though our 
increased activity in 2016-2017.  Our 
increased activity also generated £24,850 
of additional income from sources other 
than Surrey County Council.  The Board has 
agreed to contribute the deemed profit 
element of that additional income to our 
reserves, creating a net reserves balance 
of £69,441.  

Reserves Policy 

Healthwatch Surrey continues to work 
towards ensuring an unrestricted funds 
reserve equivalent to two months of its full 
year budget. At the end of 2015-2016, it 
reserved from its surplus the sum of 
£55,520.  An additional £13,921 has been 
reserved at the end of 2016-2017, to 
create a reserves balance of £69,441.  The 
Board consider this is the reserve level 
needed to ensure we can provide financial 
stability and the means for the 
development of our required activities. 
The basis for this judgement by the Board 
is the need to: 
?	Cover staff redundancies and 
winding up costs in the event of 
closure 
?	Take account of the relatively short 
time scale of our main service 
contract 
?	Take account of the relatively short 
notice of termination period of our 
main contract 
?	Ensure our commitment to ensuring 
continuity and quality of service. 
?	Bridge the timing differences 
between start of the financial year 
and the receipt of the first quarter’s 
contract payments to protect 
against the effect of late payment 
of contract invoices and the 
potential for ongoing late payments 
throughout the financial year 

The Board will, at least annually, review 
the policy and level of reserves that are 
required to ensure that they are adequate 
to fulfil our continuing obligations.


Section: Contact us 


Get in touch


Registered Address: Healthwatch 
Surrey CIC, The Annexe,  
The Lockwood Centre, Westfield 
Road, Guildford, Surrey, GU1 1RR 
www.healthwatchsurrey.co.uk 
t: 0303 303 0023 
sms: 07592 787533 
text relay: 18001 0303 303 0023 
e: enquiries@healthwatchsurrey.co.uk 
tw: @HW_Surrey 
fb: facebook.com/HealthwatchSurrey 


Address of contractors: 
?	Help & Care, 896 Christchurch Road, Bournemouth, BH7 6DL
?	Surrey Independent Living Council, Astolat, Coniers Way, Guildford, Surrey, GU4 7HL
?	Advocacy in Surrey, Surrey Disabled People’s Partnership , 51 Commercial Way, 
Woking, Surrey, GU21 6HN
?	Citizens Advice Runnymede and Spelthorne, The Old Library, Church Road, 
Addlestone, Surrey, KT15 1RW
?	Citizens Advice Waverley, 36 Bridge Street, Godalming, Surrey, GU7 1HP
?	Citizens Advice Reigate and Banstead District, 24 Cromwell Road, Redhill, Surrey, RH1 
1RT
?	Citizens Advice Woking, Provincial House, 26 Commercial Way, Woking, Surrey, GU21 
6EN
?	Citizens Advice Surrey Heath, Knoll Road, Camberley, Surrey, GU15 3SY
 
We will be making this annual report publicly available on 30 June 2017 by publishing it on 
our website and sharing it with Healthwatch England, CQC, NHS England, Clinical 
Commissioning Groups, Health and Wellbeing Board, Wellbeing and Health Scrutiny Board and 
our local authority. 
 
We confirm that we are using the Healthwatch Trademark (which covers the logo and 
Healthwatch brand) when undertaking work on our statutory activities as covered by the 
licence agreement. 
 
If you require this report in an alternative format please contact us at the address at the top 
of the page. 

© Copyright Healthwatch Surrey 2017