Issue - meetings

- Helen Watts, NHSR

Helen Watts, Head of Patient and Public Relations, and Helen Wyatt, Patient and Public Engagement Manager, NHS Rotherham, reported on the proposal to relocate PALS from the Rotherham Community Health Centre to Oak House, Bramley.

Almost 80% of contacts to PALS were by telephone, e-mail or letter.  The remaining 20% were drop-in callers primarily from people accessing Rotherham Community Health Services or EU migrants as part of a document checking service.  The RCHS was now under the management of the Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust and the document checking service managed by GPs.  This meant that the numbers of drop-in enquiries were likely to reduce over the coming months.

Also, for staff security reasons, there were always 2 members of PALS staff present when the Centre was open.  This meant that the Centre was forced to operate restricted opening times and was vulnerable to frequent ad-hoc closures due to lack of staff availability.  At Oak House the issue of staff security was negated and other NHS staff in the building would be supported to deal with the more frequent requests for information.

Discussion ensued on the report with the following issues raised/clarified:-

-        Hopefully the majority of telephone calls would be answered straight away and would not need to be passed onto someone else.  It was known that the majority of the calls related to dental services/emergency dentist

-        In January, 2011, there had been 200 drop-in callers to the Health Advice Centre which had been consistent until March.  At the end of March, the document checking service for EU migrants had transferred to GP practices and had seen the figures drop to 62 and 84 for April and May respectively.  The average number of telephone calls a month was 400-450

-        Staff had also worked with those that required assistance to complete paperwork.  The relocation would enable an appointment service to be offered with the officer meeting the client at a convenient location and time

-        For anyone who visited the Health Advice Centre there would be a free telephone number they could ring

-        Clients could still drop-in at Oak House and see a member of PALS if available.  If not, arrangements would be made for a visit

-        The move would enable staff to be more pro active rather than reactive

Resolved:-  (1)  That the proposal to relocate the service be supported.

(2)  That a report be submitted in 6 months.