We recently held an Oxfordshire advice services sector engagement workshop where we captured the views of stakeholders around current advice services and what future provision could look like.

We are keen to find out the views of people that have used advice services in Oxfordshire.

Please share the following link: https://letstalk.oxfordshire.gov.uk/advice-services to access information about services and the survey.

We would be grateful if you could promote this survey as widely as possible with the people you are or have worked with.

The survey closes on 30 November 2023.

New assessments starting from 21 November in our South region

From 21 November we will start using our new single assessment framework in our South region.

Between 21 November and 4 December we will undertake a small number of planned assessments with 14 early adopter providers, whilst continuing to respond to risk. We will then expand our new assessment approach to all providers based on a risk-informed schedule.

We are sharing more information with providers in the south separately and will be in touch with providers in other areas of the country to confirm when we'll start using our new approach with them shortly.

NOTE: At this stage our new assessment approach will not apply to services we do not rate or NHS trust well-led assessments. We'll be in contact with those providers with the detail of how we'll roll out our new approach with them.

The South region includes services registered in these counties: Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Kent, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Surrey, Sussex and Wiltshire.

Catch up on our latest webinar

In the second of our 'CQC is changing' webinar series, you can hear from Amanda Hutchinson, Head of Policy, Regulatory Change and Dave James, Head of Adult Social Care Policy.

Amanda and Dave introduce quality statements and evidence categories, and the role they play in our new regulatory approach.

We talked through where these two elements fit in the wider new regulatory approach and what guidance is available to help you understand them. Sharing example quality statements to explore how we’ll use evidence categories to identify specific sources of evidence to use in our assessments.

OxTrail is Oxfordshire’s first ever sculpture trail, raising funds for Sobell House Hospice.

A team of over 30 life sized ox sculptures will be herded into positions throughout Oxford in the summer of 2024, creating an engaging, exciting event for the city its residents, businesses and visitors.

Each of the oxen will be uniquely decorated by local and international artists to form a vibrant and family friendly trail. Across eight weeks, OxTrail will encourage locals and visitors of all ages to explore Oxford’s iconic attractions, find some hidden gems, and engage with the community.

Care home fundraising

To get involved, you’ll need to commit to a fundraising target to help cover the cost of the fibreglass ox that you get to keep afterwards. We are asking each home to raise £1,000 to take part. You could ask for the support of local businesses. We will provide fundraising resources, advice and support, as well as a blank mini ox (approx 1.3m ( x 0.8m ( x 0.4m (width), ready for your residents to paint with your own unique design.

Resources will be available to support engagement with OxTrail for residents, loved ones and staff aswell as information about Sobell House, its services and support

Finally, we will provide tools to help with the creation of your fabulous ox design.

More information can be found here or by emailing oxtrail@sobellhospice.org. The registration form can be downloaded here.

We need your help to get mooo-ving across Oxfordshire!

The All-age Unpaid Carers Strategy for Oxfordshire is for anyone who regularly supports another person on an unpaid basis – whether that be a friend, child with additional needs, loved one, parent, sibling, or a combination of these people.

This strategy has been co-produced with 1,600 adult and young carers along with stakeholders from Oxfordshire County Council, Carers Oxfordshire and many other partners from Oxfordshire County Council’s health and the voluntary sector.

As a care provider we would like you to ensure that you include unpaid carers within your satisfaction surveys. We'd particularly like you to ask for their experience with the following:

• When I need to talk to the care provider do I get a prompt response?
• Are my queries normally resolved to my satisfaction when it’s a care agency matter?
• How can the agency improve the responses it makes to your needs as the family relative, carer friend?

Our Quality Improvement Team will capture this as feedback through our monitoring of your services and it will help us all to help improve the experience of these vital carers.

You may have seen the announcement by NHSE in regard to the upcoming autumn vaccination program. Due to a COVID-19 variant of concern the start date of the program has been brought forward to the Monday 11^th September.

The ICB is working with providers to ensure all care homes have a dedicated provider to ensure full coverage. The provider may be a GP, pharmacy, or a hospital team.

We ask that care home managers work with providers to accommodate clinics at pace, ensuring any family involvement if required, i.e., where power of attorney is in place, is supported prior to the vaccination visit date.

All front-line health and social care staff are eligible for a vaccination - we have seen an increase in staff sickness across the system related to covid and would urge all staff to come forward for their vaccination. Staff can go to their GP, a participating pharmacy, or in some area's a hospital hub.

Booking online via the National Booking Service will be available from Monday 18^th September.

Should you have any questions or queries in relation to this, please email bobicb-bw.bob-carehome@nhs.net

Thank you all for your continued support.

Zo Woods

BOB ICB All age Palliative and End of Life Care (PEoLC) and Care Homes Programme Lead

Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care Board

The Health and Wellbeing Board has just produced the 2023 Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) which is designed to inform local decision-making, by identifying community needs, so that they can be met by service provision. It provides the intelligence that will inform the Joint Local Health and Wellbeing Strategy (in development) which, in turn will identify priorities for action to improve the health and wellbeing of Oxfordshire’s residents and reduce health inequalities.

You can use the JSNA to:

• find out about the key issues affecting the health and wellbeing of your local community
• identify demographic groups and geographical areas that need targeted support
• provide evidence of local needs to support funding applicaitons and inform research projects

View the JSNA at Oxfordshire Insight, and use the interactive tools to explore data on different topics and local communities.

Key findings from this year’s report include:

Population and Demographics

• Between 2011-2021 Oxfordshire’s population increased by 10.9%, above the growth in England (6.6%).
• The population from mixed or multiple ethnic groups has increased by 71% over the past 10 years.

Start Well

• Most children in Oxfordshire, assessed as part of the Healthy Child Programme development review around their second birthday, reached a good level of development in five key areas. However, children living in areas with higher income deprivation had a lower (worse) than average good level of development.
• The number of mental health referrals for young people has increased, especially for those aged 10-19.
• There are clear inequalities for childhood obesity by deprivation, sex, and ethnic group. Data shows that children were more likely to be obese in more deprived areas of Oxfordshire.

Living Well

• Oxfordshire’s population is relatively healthy and does better or similar to the national average on most public health indicators.
• Some health conditions are above the national average, including cancer and osteoporosis.
• But there are pockets of deprivation and wide inequalities in health and wellbeing.

Age Well

• Oxfordshire’s population is ageing, a trend that is predicted to continue.
• There are clear inequalities in life expectancy across Oxfordshire. Males living in more affluent areas of the county are expected to live around 11 years longer than those in poorer areas. For females, this gap is around 12 years.
• In 2021-22 the rate of hospital admissions due to falls was above the national average.
• Oxfordshire was ranked the loneliest county compared with its statistical neighbours.

Oxfordshire County Council’s Public Health team are working on the strategic roll out of making every contact count (MECC) by supporting organisations and services across Oxfordshire to embed MECC in their everyday work.

Would you/your staff like to be more confident talking about health with the people you support?

Would you/your staff like to support people to make positive changes to their health and wellbeing?

If so, MECC training could be the answer!

MECC is about utilising the day-to-day interactions we have with others to help people make positive changes to their physical and mental health and access the support they need.

MECC training is available to support staff to gain the skills and confidence needed to have conversations with others about health and wellbeing and then signpost to support services. Public Health are calling all organisations and services that have contact with the public to undertake MECC training. The training is designed to support staff to make the most of their everyday conversations and respond appropriately to cues for issues that come up in conversations and may be affecting people’s wellbeing such as money worries, finding a job, mental health and changes to lifestyle such as healthy eating or stopping smoking.

A MECC interaction takes a matter of minutes and is not intended to add to existing busy workloads, rather it is structured to fit into and complement existing conversations.

The nationwide MECC initiative is led by NHS England and Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (formerly known as Public Health England).

There are various MECC training models to choose from:

• An e-learning MECC module (approximately one hour) provided by NHS England
• An online face-to-face MECC practice training session on Microsoft Teams with a MECC trainer (approximately two to three hours)
• MECC train-the-trainer courses for those who are interested in cascading training to their own team and would like to become a MECC trainer. These consist of four two-hour online interactive sessions. You’ll become a member of the MECC trainer network and be invited to other CPD and behaviour change focussed events. Organisations who are willing to cascade MECC training to their staff are encouraged to undertake the MECC train-the-trainer course.

The MECC training on offer in Oxfordshire is accredited by the national CPD accreditation body and the Health Education England (HEE) Behavioural Insights team (HEE has recently merged with NHS England).

To book a place on the MECC training, please email bobicb.personalisedcaretraining@nhs.net. To book a place on the MECC train-the-trainer course, please email clare.hodsdon@nhs.net. Depending on numbers, bespoke sessions can also be arranged for your team.

If you’d like to find out more about MECC in general, please email Imogen Coningsby in Oxfordshire County Council’s Public Health team.

The Oxfordshire Library Service provides direct access to reading, information, ICT and digital resources, as well as delivering impactful work in the areas of literacy, social and digital inclusion, health and wellbeing, and lifelong learning.

The current cost of living crisis, the ageing population, post-pandemic child development issues, and the digital inclusion agenda all point to libraries being busier than ever in the coming years.

The Oxfordshire Library Service wants to work with organisations in the areas of health and/or wellbeing by inviting them to hold a drop-in or event at one of the 44 libraries in Oxfordshire. Previously, the library service have had organisations such as Oxfordshire Mind and Active Oxfordshire come in to talk about mental health and wellbeing and physical activity. The service is keen to expand this offer by welcoming other organisations including voluntary and community sector organisations to come into the library and host a display, stand, drop-in or live event. This could be on a one-off or recurring basis.

If your organisation would be interested, or if you can think of another organisation which might like to take up this opportunity, please contact: Simon.Lay@Oxfordshire.gov.uk – Operations Manager, Library Branch Network