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Hello, my name’s John Leach. I am the chair of the Stockport LINk. I have been a member
of the LINk, Stockport LINk, for two years now in which time we’ve done an amazing
amount of work thanks to the work of our managers and our lovely, lovely people.
I became involved with LINk because basically, I’d retired from my work and my partner
said “I don’t want you indoors messing about and hanging about here under my feet,
go and find something to do.” I looked around and as I’ve always had an interest in health
issues I thought that LINk would be a good thing to join. And here I am.
I am surrounded by people who all have the best interests of the community at heart and
as such are prepared to work on a voluntary basis to get things organised for the benefit
of their fellow members, fellow people in Stockport.
We’re working very closely with Stockport Council and their various departments. Also
with members from Stepping Hill Hospital and various other departments to do with podiatry,
dentistry, pharmacists... and everything else to do where the health service are involved
with. We are working also with Stockport NHS which is the new version of the PCT, is it?
Yeah, good. Over the last two years, we’ve made great
strides in improving various little things that happen in Stockport that annoy the residents
of Stockport. Such as the great advancement made in hearing aids. The time that was taken
to repair hearing aids was over 16 weeks. Now, through our work mostly we’ve manage
to get that repair time down to two weeks, which is a great, great advancement for people
who rely on hearing aids. Stockport LINk was established on 1st October
2008 which makes this October coming up out 2nd birthday. Since the LINk was set up, we
have done many things and I will let our LINk members tell you what we’ve done in the
last year. Undertaken 21 Enter and View Visits carried
out by LINk Enter & View Authorised Representatives Attended or hosted 42 public engagement events
Made 26 requests for information to Health and Social Care organisations
Took part in 10 consultations Commented on 9 policies, strategies or relevant
documents relating to health and social care Took part in 4 pieces of research
Provided 30+ Presentations and Talks to local groups to promote the LINk
Took part in 5 areas of joint working with other agencies
Received 12 requests to join strategic groups Took part or hosted 11 focus groups
Received over 100 feedback forms about health and social care services
Written 23+ articles for partner publications Celebrated its inaugural year at Stockport
Art Gallery with 60 people attending Everybody in Stockport will at some point
or time will be involved in the National Health Service and the social services and therefore
everybody will have an interest in how these services are provided for us. Many people
also have a lot more experience of this and have a point that they wish to make, the sort
of point that the provider of the service ought to hear. Because some of us are so busy
or because we haven’t got much time or the ability to put this into the words that we
would like to and pass it on in a way we should we need the support of some sort of organisation
that will help listen to what we say and help us put our views either individually or collectively
to the right people. LINk does just that and as a member of LINk, I feel a main part of
my responsibility is to listen to people and to make sure that I understand the points
and arguments that they are putting forward, both on the good things and the bad things
that are happening in the area in the hope that we can change things for the better in
the future. In my own personal role I do my best to represent the residents of Stockport
on one of the important committees within the Stockport Primary Care Trust. This is
the Community Health Stockport Committee that runs the district nurses... the provider side
of the Primary Care in Stockport and I find this very interesting and I am delighted in
the way the people round the table there are able to listen to the views and do listen
to the views I have been able to express. And I have considerable freedom in what I
say in that I can do so without any constraints put on me, or pressure put on me by the rest
of the committee. There other people in the LINk organisation
who are represented on other boards in the community and this is becoming increasingly
important as the Primary Care Trust in particular does develop the various strategic boards
for key policies in those areas. LINk is also on the Health & Wellbeing Partnership,
which together with other people within all of Stockport and particularly the Council
are agreeing the priorities in the area. As you can see current LINk members are involved
and working with the statutory sector to address issues and areas of concern to local people
in Stockport. Notably a couple of the areas the LINk is
currently working on based on feedback from LINk members and the public is that of discharge
experience from hospital and that of experience when accessing your GP. The LINk has set up
a discharge from hospital task & Finish Group aiming to understand the processes around
discharge and the experience of people leaving hospital. The Group has designed a questionnaire
to provide us with evidence to present to the commissioners and providers involved with
patient experience. The Stockport Health Care Forum an ongoing
subgroup of the LINk has taken up the issue of using your GP Surgery experience and has
also designed a questionnaire so that they can target the specific aspects of using GP
services that needs highlighting. If you would like to tell us your experience of either
discharge or using your GP surgery you will find copies of both questionnaires on the
LINk stand. Results of both surveys will be available
later in the year be sure to signup up for the LINk newsletter to keep up to date.
Looking to the future and the opportunities provided to us from the change in government.
As a network we have strong relationships with organisations and services which address
the needs of different sections of the community but acknowledge there is more to do around
children and young people and are currently in the process of setting up a young people’s
health forum in partnership with action for sick children, Stockport council and NHS Stockport,
we hope that young people here will take the lead and we are committed that they have a
voice and are empowered to use it. I am sure today will inform some of our future
work at the LINk and the LINk will continue to monitor services to ensure that the priorities
identified are taken into consideration. We hope that today will go some way in strengthening
public engagement and involvement and will ensure local people are the heart of decision
making. Have an enjoyable afternoon – don’t forget to sign up for the issues you are interested
in and I think lunch should just about be ready!