Produced by Public Engagement Team, Freepost RLUC-KBCH-KKHC, NHS Highland, Assynt House, Inverness IV2 3BW:

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1 Highland HealthVOICES G U T H S l i n t e n a G a i d h e a l t a c h d Inside this issue: 1. Forthcoming meetings Wheelchair and Seating Service Modernisation Project Would you like to improve your memory? Care of the dying working group needing volunteers Help us improve hospital letters Air Ambulance - Public Engagement Event 21 st January Consultation event on Scottish Autism Strategy Bill Free Public Talks on Men s Health Blindness Matters 2010 Seminar Emergency Text Message Service Newsletters Events... 9 Produced by Public Engagement Team, Freepost RLUC-KBCH-KKHC, NHS Highland, Assynt House, Inverness IV2 3BW: Gill Keel, Head of Public Engagement , gill.keel1@nhs.net Karen Burnett, HHVN Coordinator , karen.burnett1@nhs.net Lynda Gilfillan, (mornings Mon-Thurs), Administration Assistant , lynda.gilfillan@nhs.net Fax: General getinvolved.nhshighland@nhs.net Website: NHS Highland Get Involved

2 1. Forthcoming meetings The programme below gives the next dates for each listed group. Feel free to contact your local HHVN member if you want an issue raised or need more information. The NHS Highland Board, Community Health Partnership and Raigmore meetings are all held in public, so you are welcome to attend (the details contact would appreciate a call in advance so they can prepare anything if required). Date Tues 2 nd Feb 10 Tues 9 th Feb 10 Mon 15 th Feb 10 Thurs 18 th Feb 10 Thurs 18 th Feb 10 or Group NHS Highland Board Meeting North Highland CHP Raigmore Hospital SE Highland CHP HHVN Steering Group Venue/Time Contact for details HHVN member contact Board Room, Assynt House, Inverness 2pm Venue TBC 10.30am to 1.00pm Venue TBC 2pm - Boardroom, John Dewar Building, 11.30am Boardroom Lorraine Power, Board Services Administrator, Assynt House, Beechwood Park, Inverness Kay Oswald, CHP Support Manager, North Highland Community Health Partnership, Caithness General Hospital, Bankhead Road, Wick, KW1 5NS Tel: E mail: kay.oswald@nhs.net Lynn Lawrence, Business Support Manager, General Manager s Office, Raigmore Hospital, Old Perth Road, Inverness, IV2 3UJ Tel: Sue Blackhurst, Administrator, South East Highland Community health Partnership, Alder House, Cradlehall Business Park, Inverness IV2 5GH Tel: Assynt House, Inverness (Not applicable) Agenda and papers available on NHS Highland website a week prior to meeting Liz Smith, Primary Member Tel: liziansmith@gmail.com Allan Tubb, Deputy Member Tel: Jim Fry, Member Tel: A member of the Raigmore Patients Council is also on this committee contact Lynda if you d like to get in touch with them Hamish Wood, Primary Member Hamish.wood@nhs.net Tel: Dr Kate Adamson, Deputy Member adamsonk@btinternet.com Lynda Gilfillan, Admin Assistant, Assynt House, Beechwood Park, Inverness IV2 3BW Tel:

3 Date Fri 19 th Feb 10 or Group Mid Highland CHP Governance Venue/Time Contact for details HHVN member contact 10.am 1.30pm Training Room, County Community Hospital, Invergordon Jackie Jefferson, Mid CHP /Management Administrator, Larachan House, 9 Docharty Road, Dingwall IV15 9UG Tel: Wed 3 rd March A&B CHP TBA Margaret Johnston, General Manager s Office, Argyll & Bute CHP, Aros, Lochgilphead, Argyll PA31 8LB Tel: margaretjohnston@nhs. net Robin Creelman, Chair A&B PPF and CHP Member robincreelman@yahoo.co.uk Evelyn Hide, Vice Chair A&B PPF and CHP Member evelynhide@btinternet.co m 2. Wheelchair and Seating Service Modernisation Project Background NHS Highland Wheelchair and Seating Service covers the Highlands, Western Isles and West Grampian areas, has over four thousand patients with a wide variety of needs and maintains over four thousand wheelchairs. In March 2006 a document called Moving Forward was published after a national review of the Wheelchair and Seating Services (WSS) across Scotland. In this document recommendations were made for the modernisation and improvement of the five services that make up the Scottish Wheelchair Service. In March 2009 a national action plan was published to bring about the recommended changes throughout the Scottish service. The recommendations that were made include the modernisation of the wheelchair fleet to bring it inline with technological advances, the relaxation of eligibility criteria for the issue of powerchairs and moving some of the prescribing and issue of wheelchairs closer to patients. Highland WSS is also working towards improving its overall efficiency to bring about the reduction of waiting times for assessments and wheelchair issue and repair. Staffing The WSS has significantly increased its staffing levels over the last 6 months. The Service now has three teams consisting of an Senior Occupational Therapist and a Rehabilitation Engineer. These three teams carry out home visits and local clinics for wheelchair patients across the Highlands, Western Isles and West Grampian. Their work involves patient assessment and issue of equipment to those that have more complex conditions. 2

4 There is also an Occupational Therapist who spends 6 months with the Service on a rotational basis and an Occupational Therapist Assistant to take on the less complex tasks. These include the initial assessment of referral forms, tasks relating to issuing basic wheelchairs and cushions, as well as delivering training to patients. As more patients can now be seen by the service because of extra staffing, two new administrative positions based at Raigmore have been created and filled. Wheelchair User and Carer Network The Wheelchair Service, with the assistance of the Public Involvement Team, has so far sent out over eight hundred invitations to its service users with the view to having invitations sent to all patients in the next few months. The project for setting up a user and carer group has been registered with our clinical effectiveness department who will be giving assistance on gathering information from patients and will help in the development and issue of any questionnaires. Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) As part of the WSS Modernisation Project the Service is expanding its Planned Preventative Maintenance operation which provides regular equipment servicing at users homes. Two new PPM technicians have recently been employed and are undergoing training at the Wheelchair Depot at Walker Place. In January these technicians will be ready to deliver the PPM service out into the community to service users across the Highlands, Western Isles and West Grampian. Because of extra administration involved in the expansion of this service a new administration worker has been employed at the Wheelchair Depot. ILM Highland Additional Support In April, as part of NHS Highland shifting the balance strategy the Wheelchair and Seating Service began a pilot scheme working with a local not for profit organisation called Intermediate Labour Market (ILM) Highland. ILM is a social enterprise with charitable status that delivers domestic support services across the Highlands to the elderly and more vulnerable people living in the community. These services include a handyperson, care and repair and insulation service. (Further information can be found on their website ) Over the last seven months ILM s handyperson service have been working with Highland Wheelchair and Seating Service offering a repair, delivery and collection service to patients across Ross & Cromarty, Sutherland and Caithness. This service is provided by the handyperson team, all of which have undergone training from the WSS staff. This training covers areas such as repair, delivery and adjustment of the basic fleet chairs and instructing WSS patients in the safe and correct use of their chair. The handyperson team is also trained to being able to identify patients that have postural and pressure 3

5 issues that may require a follow up visit by one of the WSS occupation therapist and rehabilitation engineer teams. Since the beginning of the pilot ILM have carried out nearly 300 repairs, deliveries and collections for the WSS and is proving to be a valuable part of the Services structure, providing an improved quality of care to our patients. 3. Would you like to improve your memory? NHS Highland is looking for volunteers to take part in an Integrated Memory Stimulation (IMS) group as part of a pilot project being run in the Inverness area. Occupational Therapists Fiona McLean and Barbara Manson both have an interest in memory and have developed IMS after attending specialist memory training in Europe. The pilot will consist of 10 weekly groups in Inverness starting on Thursday, 28 th January. It is hoped that 15 people will be recruited to take part; if demand is great participants will be selected randomly. There is no charge for attendance and all that is being asked of whose who volunteer is that they are able to commit to attend all 10 sessions, complete a simple pre and post training questionnaire and are prepared to do a little work/practice between groups. For an application form or further information people should contact Fiona McLean on or Barbara Manson on Care of the dying working group needing volunteers The NHS Highland Living and Dying Well Performance Management Group are looking for people who could contribute to their work to improve care at such a difficult and sensitive time for patients and families. Living and Dying Well an Action Plan for Palliative and End of Life Care is a Scottish Government policy whose aim is to improve care for everyone at the end of their life regardless of their diagnosis. Within NHS Highland we have developed an action plan based upon this document which sets out what we are doing to improve the palliative and end of life care across all our communities. This work is overseen by the Living and Dying Well Performance Management Group. We would really welcome two members of the public to become active members of the group. The meetings are held bimonthly, at Assynt House, 1pm to 3pm. We would expect that members would bring a perspective from their communities and feel confident to express constructive ideas opinions on this work. Support to understand the Living and Dying Well Action Plan, national policy, and the agenda would be offered. If you are interested please contact: Chrissie Lane, Macmillan Cancer Nurse Consultant or chrissie.lane@nhs.net as soon as possible. 4

6 5. Help us improve hospital letters If you haven t joined in anything previously from this newsletter now is your chance to try and help us with something really important. As part of the development work linked to Booking and Administrative processes we received a number of complaints (formal and informal) about the quality of the Hospital Letters being sent out. Responding to this feedback, work has been done to fully research and liaise with a wide range of people to improve the process and the quality. We are working to introduce standard hospital letters and we would like some people to comment on the drafts that have been produced. The letters are not lengthy. They are: Invitation Letter to Patient Reminder Letter to Patient Letter to Doctor if patient ends up not having an appointment We would like to get the standard wording agreed. We may not be able to accommodate all the changes (because they often conflict) but we will take any feedback and make a considered response and change as appropriate. If you can help please get in touch with Lynda and she will send out copies of the letters. We apologise for the tight deadline but we need your views to be returned to us by 29 th January. 6. Air Ambulance - Public Engagement Event 21 st January As some of you will be aware, the Scottish Ambulance Service had planned to hold a Public Engagement Event in late January but this has now been rescheduled and will take place on Thursday, 21 st January from 7pm to 9pm in the Tulloch Room, Eden Court Theatre, Inverness. They will be explaining how they will be deciding on their Air Ambulance Service, with the new contract due to start in 2013 and are inviting you to attend as they would welcome feedback from public and patients on what you think is important in a future Air Ambulance Service. It is planned to have a short presentation followed by a question and answer session. This is to be an open meeting and you will not need to register. If you have any questions about the event please get in touch with Ian Donald, Regional Redesign Manager (North), Scottish Ambulance Service. idonald@nhs.net 5

7 7. Consultation event on Scottish Autism Strategy Bill Hugh O Donnell MSP has published his proposal for a draft Scottish Autism Strategy Bill in the Scottish Parliament. There will be three months of public consultation before MSP s decide if the proposal will go on to be debated as a draft bill. The consultation document is available at: Scottish Autism Strategy Bill proposal Hugh s proposal is based on implementing the Autism Act that passed through Westminster Parliament last year but only applied to England. It would require the Scottish Government to put in place a national Autistic Spectrum Disorder strategy and to place appropriate duties on councils and health boards that will support its implementation. The National Autistic Society has been involved in helping to prepare these proposals and they are leading a campaign over the coming months to get support for the draft bill to become law. To support the campaign and as part of the consultation, a Partners in Autism event has been scheduled on Thursday 11 th February at Inshes Church in Inverness. This event will provided interested parties with information about the campaign and how you can contribute. If you are interested Lisa Sturgess, Regional Officer North West Scotland, The National Autistic Society, The Pines, Drummond Road, Inverness IV2 4NZ Tel feel free to circulate details of the consultation to your contacts. 8. Free Public Talks on Men s Health Men s Health Highland in conjunction with the Highland Council Education Culture and Sport service are pleased to announce a schedule of free Public Talks in the Town House on Friday mornings in early These sessions will be delivered by speakers from inside and outside Inverness with sessions devoted to different aspects of Men s Health eye problems; addictions; work of Beechwood; ear, nose and throat; skin problems; bowel screening; heart and chest; diabetes; terminal illness; bereavement; healthy weight strategy and positive health issues. Each session will begin at 9.30 am with tea/coffee, then a few talks by different speakers starting at 9.45am until 12.30pm approximately. Time will be given for questions and answers following the talks. The dates for the Jan/Feb sessions are as follows: 22 nd January 5 th February 19 th February 6

8 For a more detailed programme or more information you can e mail tescott@btinternet.com. 9. Blindness Matters 2010 Seminar This seminar is part of the Eyecare Project, a partnership involving Highland Council, NHS Highland, Highland Area Optometric and Sight Action. The aim of the project is to put service users at the heart of planning and designing future services with one of the key objectives being to raise awareness of Visual Impairment in the Highlands. Places are limited, so if you are interested please complete and return the booking form via the link below to Mike Robertson, Project Administrator. Blindness Matters 10. Emergency Text Message Service The purpose of the emergency SMS service is to enable deaf, hard of hearing and speech-impaired people living in the UK to send an SMS text message to the UK 999 service where it will be passed to the ambulance, police, fire rescue or coastguard services. The service is a government initiative backed by Ofcom and is a joint venture between various UK telecom firms. It is currently under trial and, if successful, will become permanent in early In an emergency, the user sends an SMS, spelling out the emergency service required, the nature of the emergency and the location. A receipt text is then sent letting the user know the message is being acted upon. Further texts with instructions or questions from the emergency services are sent as needed. In order to use the service a person needs to register his/her phone first by SMS texting the word Register to 999. Without registering people who send the text message to 999 will receive an automated reply saying that they need to register before they can use the service. For more information, please visit website. 11. Newsletters The December issue of the NHS Highland Team Update is now available and can be accessed on the website here. Articles this month include: Belford Hospital services redesign Encouraging patients to consider granting power of Attorney Hate Free Highland Childsmile 7

9 Mental Health in Argyll & Bute 2012 : Everyone s Business The December 2009 newsletter outlining how work is continuing to progress and will shortly be available on our website - Argyll and Bute Mental Health Review. Also in this issue are articles on Information & Communication Events planned for February/March. For more information on these events or if you would like a hard copy please contact Caroline Champion, Planning & Public Involvement Manager on Work E Bulletin January 2010 This New Year edition contains information about the W@W programme, together with links to newsletters, press articles and other information which may be of interest to members. The website address is or if you have information to share with them you can contact Susan on s.kruse@weascotland.org.uk. (See Item 8 Events for details of one day event to be held in Lochgilphead). The latest edition of the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network SIGN patient network newsletter is available to download from their website by clicking on the following link: SIGN Patient Network Community Health Exchange CheX-Point Snippets CHeX-Point Snippets Issue 154 is now available. As always this edition is full of interesting and relevant information:health check for NHS Scotland Disability Action Plan Tendering Brief Voluntary Arts Network Wave of Friendship Volunteer Exchange Programme Palliative Care Network Newsletter Winter 2009 including articles on Pharmacy Update, Palliative Care Information Pack, Highland Hospice Outreach Team and useful websites and other information all relating to palliative care is now available. You can request an electronic copy from j.carney@highlandhospice.org.uk. or for a hard copy contact Lynda. The following newsletter is available only in hard copy from the office: Scottish Cancer Prevention Network January newsletter looking at topics like tackling health inequalities and cancer prevention, sunbeds, processed meat and bowel cancer and cancer survivorship. 8

10 12. Events Inverness Joint Patient Participation Group (JPPG) meetings for 2010 The planned dates for the full year s meetings of the Inverness JPPG are as follows: 17 February - (venue is Lochardil House Hotel from 7pm to 9pm and the speaker will be Maurice Nicholson from the Telecare Service) 19 May 1 September 1 December For more information on these meetings contact Diana Wortham, JPPG Facilitator on or by e mail on dwortham@hccf.org.uk. Inverness Bipolar Support Group 19 January This group which helps people affected by bipolar disorder is holding an Open Night on Tuesday, 19 January from 6.30pm to 8.00pm in Cairdeas Cottage, 5 Bank Street, Inverness. They are looking to re-launch the Bipolar Support Group and want your input into deciding how the group will run in the future. For more information please contact Bipolar Fellowship Scotland on or Cairdeas Cottage on Women@ Work One day Event in Argyll Women@ Work Argyll Network will be hosting a special one day event on the 22 nd January : Getting Involved A special event supporting women to speak out and make a difference. This event will take place in the Argyll & Bute Council Chambers, Lochgilphead. For further details see the W@W diary pages on the website at Caithness and Sutherland Walking Festival : 1 8 May inclusive The Dunnet Head Educational Trust is working to improve facilities for walkers in the far north of Scotland and are promoting the Caithness and Sutherland Walking Festival which will take place from 1 st to 8 th May 2010 inclusive. There are walks for all abilities, including two Step it Up Highland walks. You can see more about the festival at You can also see more about the Trust s projects at Remember if there is an event or workshop which you ve attended and found interesting and want to share with others please get in touch with Lynda. The final date for submissions for the next issue is Friday 5 th February. Back to Top 9