Healthwatch Bracknell Forest provides administration for the Bracknell Forest Mental Health Forum on behalf of the Community Mental Health Team.

The mental health forum is for anyone involved locally with mental health and it aims to capture views and share updates about local health and social care. This includes people who use mental health services, their carers and health and social care professionals.

Click here to view meeting the records.

Healthwatch Bracknell Forest is recruiting members of the public to join the team of volunteers who help promote and carry out Healthwatch Bracknell Forest activities and functions. You know your neighbourhood; you have relatives, friends, neighbours, colleagues and a whole network of contacts who you could ask for their ideas about how to improve services for everyone. You are the local experts!

Joining the Healthwatch Bracknell Forest team will give you a great opportunity to help make a real difference to delivering service improvements and benefits for communities across Bracknell Forest.

We are currently recruiting for three roles, you maybe intrested in one or more of them.

Community Champion - Community Champions help to promote Healthwatch Bracknell Forest and its work within the local community. This could involve running a promotion stall at a local event, collecting the views from people you meet at your clubs and groups, delivering leaflets and posters to places such as local GP surgeries and, in some cases, delivering a small presentation to a local group.

Authorised Representative for Enter and View - One of the statutory powers Healthwatch Bracknell Forest has is ‘Enter & View’. Representatives, ideally in groups of three (professional, expert patient and lay member) can enter and view health and social care facilities and services. This may be because we have been invited by the service provider or because members of the public/partner organisations (such as the Care Quality Commission - CQC) have highlighted areas of concern.

Project Support Board - The project support board aims to consist of 6 local voluntary sector organisations, 3 public members, 3 experts by expierience and an independent chair. The role of the members of the Project Support Boards is to provide feedback, challenge and question the health and social care system and shapre our work program.

For further details please see the application pack below.

Your application can be returned by post or by email, we look forward to receiving your application. If you would like a printed copy please let us know.

Healthwatch Bracknell Forest is run by a Project Management Board which is made up of representatives from the consortium organisations. There is also public representatives on this board who are elected or co-opted annually.

In 2016 we held elections for public representatives 3 nominations were received, we asked members of the public for objections to these nominations, none were received and these members became our public representatives at our public meeting held on 12 April 2016 till 31 March 2017.

Due to the government elections and the restrictions this places on local Healthwatch and charities, and a significant decrease in future funding, going forward public representation will be co-opted, should you wish to be considered please let us know.

Healthwatch Voices is a network for community and voluntary sector organisations to share their experiences and issues with health and social care services in Bracknell Forest. The information collected forms part of our overall work plan and is fed back to providers and commissioners of both health and social care services.

Healthwatch Voices Aims to:

• Represent and input the views of local people, including young people, the elderly and harder to reach people in the community
• Provide constructive comments and feedback of issues raised
• Discuss and raise priorities and issues that you would like Healthwatch Bracknell Forest to action
• Distribute and gather information
• Help shape and develop information being gathered and have direct input into health and social care priorities for all in Bracknell Forest

To join the mailing list please signup your organistaion here.

What is a JSNA?

The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) is the means by which Public Health assess the current and future health healthcare and wellbeing needs of the local population in Bracknell Forest. It is an assessment of local, current and future health and social care needs that could be met by local authorities, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), the NHS and other partners. It will inform Bracknell Forests’ Joint Health and Wellbeing Board, which has a duty and responsibility to identify key priorities to improve the Health and Wellbeing for people living in Bracknell Forest. The Health and Wellbeing Board produces a health and wellbeing strategy which is based on the needs identified within a JSNA.

See the JSNA website for more details.

The General Osteopathic Council work with the public and osteopathic profession to promote patient safety by registering qualified professionals, and setting, maintaining and developing standards of osteopathic practice and conduct. 

• Would you like to be involved in developing information for patients and the public?
• Are you interested in standards of osteopathic practice?

The Patient and Public Partnership Group enables them to work more closely with patients to improve their services, better protect the public, and provide patients and the public with the information they need about osteopathic practice.

A scam is any unwanted e-mail, letter, telephone call or visitor who make false promises if they are given money in some way. Some examples are:

• fake lotteries, prize draws or sweepstakes
• clairvoyants (someone who says they can tell you your future), computer scams and romance scams

The criminals try and trick people with flashy, important looking documents or websites and are very convincing! They will always ask for money in some way: either a money payment, or to post something or make an expensive phone call. Doorstep Scams are also crimes carried out by bogus callers and rogue traders who call, often uninvited, at people's home pretending to be official businesses.

Scams affect the lives of millions of people across the UK! People who are scammed often experience loneliness, shame and social isolation.

If you access this link, scroll down and select the first blue circled called ‘Friends – find our more’, it will allow you to access a really useful and interactive short online learning module (the green rectangle). It is good fun and informative at the same time so please spread the word, spread your awareness and make people safer!

NHS National Institute for Health Research

What is a Patient Research Ambassador?
A Patient Research Ambassador is someone who promotes health research from a patient point of view. They could be a patient, service user, carer or lay person who is enthusiastic about health research and is willing to communicate that to other patients, the public, as well as other healthcare professionals.

Why do we need Patient Research Ambassadors?
We would like to involve both patients and NHS researchers to recognise the importance of research in delivering health care. As a Patient Research Ambassador you can help to ensure that people using local NHS care have the best opportunities and choices about taking part in research studies.

If your intrested visit their website for more information.

Adult Social Care matters

"Escalating funding pressures and increasing demand are threatening services that improve lives and communities. We cannot go on like this.

It is time to confront the hard choices and be honest about the options. This is our chance to put adult social care right at the very heart of the Government’s thinking." LGA

Please visit http://www.futureofadultsocialcare.co.uk/ review their green paper and answer the questions.

We want to know more about you or your partner's experience of mental health support when planning to get pregnant, during pregnancy, at the birth of your child and afterwards.

Share your views

Did you know?

As many as 1 in 5 pregnant women and new mums experience some form of mental health challenge. Partners can also be affected, with one charity estimating that 1 in 3 new dads are concerned about their mental health.

Why we want your views

The NHS is spending more money on maternal mental health support but we want to know if this is making a difference. We want to know whether services are doing everything they can to support people with mental health challenges during or after pregnancy to ensure the whole family is supported.

You can help by sharing your experience or encouraging anyone you know who might be affected to complete our short survey.

Talk to us

Take five minutes to share your story.

Take the survey

Find out more You can also find out more about how Healthwatch plans to tackle mental health over the next few years.

Find out more

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is collaborating with St George’s University of London with a research study involving carers of individuals with psychosis. The study is called Carers for People with Psychosis e-support (COPE-support) and aims to find out if this online resource improves carer’s well-being and how well they cope with caring’. COPe-support provides peer support, information on psychosis and ways for carers to look after themselves. You can see further information at http://cope-support.org/get-involved/

Evolving Communities CIC in collaboration with Beacon have an opportunity for individuals to improve the quality and accessibility of NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) information.

They want to hear from you if you are an individual or their representative and have gone through the CHC assessment process (Checklist and/or full assessment). They are interested in how you accessed information about CHC throughout the entire process.

This work is being commissioned by NHS England (NHSE) and will help them develop a national CHC information resource.

The project has two stages, an online survey and a series of focus groups across England.

An online survey that will take no more than 10 minutes to complete. This is open to anyone who has experience of any part of the referral and assessment process.

Four focus groups taking place in mid-late September in Birmingham, Leeds, London and Bristol. Participants must have experience of the full assessment process.

The survey:

They invite anyone who has experience of being assessed for CHC, or representing another person who was being assessed, to complete a 10-minute online survey. It aims to gather insights into the quantity, quality and accessibility of CHC information – and whether this varies across the country and according to care needs.

It will collect some details about you/the person you represent and ask for your views on the information, or lack of it, that you received throughout the CHC process. For example:

• How easy was it to find information at each stage?
• Did you receive too much/not enough information?
• Was it easy to read and understand?
• What was your decision letter like? Did it tell you how the eligibility criteria were applied?
• What type of information would have been useful?

The survey is anonymous, so you do not need to provide your name. You only need to complete the questions that you feel comfortable to answer.

You can take part in the online survey until 30 September 2018 by clicking this link: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/CHCinfo

For more information visit their website.