You must have seen this organisation championing disabled adults as they had their transport taken off them? Or fighting Council cuts to support for elderly people with dementia and traumatised kids? Or researching the real affects of the Council's privatisation of every last bit of adult social care? What? You haven't? Me neither! Is Healthwatch toothless, useless or part of a company that's getting massive contracts from Salford Council, one of the very organisations it's supposed to `independently' monitor'?
Healthwatch nationally was created from the Health and Social Care Act 2012, and local groups were to be set up in 2013, "working towards a society in which people's health and social care needs are heard, understood and met". The aim was that `People shape health and social care delivery; influence the services they receive personally and hold services to account'.
In Salford, social enterprise, Unlimited Potential, won the contract, worth £166,520 per year, to be Healthwatch `Steward' and has since made a right pig's ear of it. Even Salford Council wasn't impressed... "There was significant dissatisfaction from Healthwatch members as to the lack of progress made and the approach taken of Unlimited Potential" a progress report stated late last year, adding there was a `lack of public awareness', a `lack of meaningful leadership' and `poor communication and administration'.
Behind the scenes, I hear, there was total chaos, with experienced staff and the `shadow board' being binned, volunteers resigning and Unlimited Potential wanting to impose an `appointed' board and a paid chair, while pushing for Healthwatch to be part of its structure rather than an independent body. Or, as the Council report put it, "Concerns focussed on the pace at which Healthwatch was developing, the leadership from Unlimited Potential and the engagement of members in shaping the future of Healthwatch".
So what did Salford Council do with the damning report? It noted that `progress' was being made and gave Unlimited Potential the contract for another three years, at £166,520 per year, with an option to extend it for a further two years after that!
So how much `progress is Healthwatch making? Well the latest `news' on its website asks for views on Greater Manchester West NHS priorities "by the end of March 2014"...its last uploaded newsletter was produced six months ago...its `inspection reports' consist of cutting and pasting reports from the Care Quality Commission ...and there's videos still up there of Healthwatch volunteers who have since resigned in disgust.
Meanwhile Healthwatch has remained publicly silent on all the cuts, privatisation, integration and NHS devolution that's going on at the moment, and remains so far below the radar that no-one I know has ever heard of our `independent consumer champion in health and social care'...
And there's more. Surely, you might think, Healthwatch should be independent of all health care providers so it can slag them off if it needs to? This could be a bit tricky, when Unlimited Potential is picking up Salford Council contracts for Health Training (£107,636), the Smoking Support Exchange Programme (£120,000) and Smoke Free (£60,000). Its `independent' members would have to investigate Healthwatch's own parent company.
As Unlimited Potential proudly announces, "from small community roots we have grown into a £1million a year business, working with the city council, health chiefs and other local organisations"...
*This article was first published in Salford Star print issue May 2015
.png)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
(3).jpeg)
.png)
(1).JPG)
