County Council makes accessing cost-of-living resources easier with dedicated webpage

Accessing benefits and resources linked with rises in the cost of living has been made simpler following the launch of East Sussex County Council’s dedicated website page.

The ‘Support with the cost of living’ home page brings together key resources in one place to take the confusion out of finding advice, information and support to deal with increasing expenses.

Advice includes how to maximise benefits, tackle concerns around housing, pay essential bills, and gain access to mental health services to ease the worry this winter

The County Council’s ‘Support with the cost-of-living’ page assists people in the following areas:

Money, including help with benefits
Your mental health
Transport
Employment and learning
Your home

Learning Disability England also has accessible advice about saving money, keeping warm, grants and campaigns on its website.

NHS campaign urges residents to ‘Help Us, Help You’ keep well this winter

Using the right services if you need help, getting your winter vaccinations, keeping active, and having a well-stocked medicine cabinet at home are some of the things that can help you stay well this winter.

Residents are also asked to keep in touch with older neighbours, relatives, and friends that may need a bit of extra help this winter.

To prepare for the expected increase in need for health and care services this winter, NHS Sussex will:

Help people get urgent and emergency care as quickly as possible when they need it
Increase the number of GP appointments available, and at more times of the day
Provide more support to frail people to help prevent them ending up in hospital for care
Provide more support to people considered at high-risk of becoming ill to prevent them from getting worse, particularly those with conditions that affect their breathing, heart and blood vessels
Prevent more people from ending up in hospital by providing more care at home, or their place of residence
Help more people leave hospital quicker when they are well enough to return to their place of residence or go to a more appropriate place to get care

Find out more about the ‘Help Us, Help You’ campaign, along with information and advice about how to keep well this winter.

Additional funding will continue to support the service providing respite breaks for unpaid carers

Unpaid carers across East Sussex will be able to continue benefitting from regular respite breaks after East Sussex County Council agreed to continue supporting the service with additional funding.

The service gives unpaid carers across East Sussex a free respite break from their role by providing a carefully selected and thoroughly vetted volunteer to spend time with the person they care for on a regular basis.

The regular, three-hour respite breaks — usually weekly or fortnightly — are delivered by the Association of Carers, which is commissioned by the County Council.

Due to the pandemic, the number of volunteers reduced, and there are a significant number of carers on the waiting list for this service.

As an interim measure, the County Council funded paid support worker time for 12 months to deliver some of these carers breaks while the service worked to rebuild its volunteer base.

The use of paid workers has been very successful in providing breaks to those on the waiting list for a volunteer, particularly in the High Weald, Lewes and Havens areas where volunteer recruitment is a particular challenge.

Additionally, the use of paid workers has enabled the service to support some more complex situations and where there has been reluctance to accept a volunteer, a paid worker has been accepted.

To be eligible for the service, the carer needs to be over 18 and providing substantial levels of care.

Proposals to improve East Sussex cardiology and ophthalmology services

Improvements to cardiology and ophthalmology services in East Sussex – including new cardiac response teams for both Hastings and Eastbourne to ensure people get the specialist care they need straight away, and one-stop ophthalmology clinics – are progressing.

The East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust (ESHT) Board considered summaries of the decision-making business cases (DMBCs) for both cardiology and ophthalmology at its meeting on 11 October, and subsequently endorsed the proposals.

Full DMBCs and all other supporting information will go to the NHS Sussex Integrated Care Board (ICB) on 2 November for its decision. All the documents are now publicly available to read and specific documents can be downloaded at the cardiology and ophthalmology home pages.

The proposals, and the ICB decision, will then be reviewed by the East Sussex Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 15 December.

Ophthalmology

For ophthalmology, the proposal is to improve care by consolidating the services currently provided at Eastbourne District General Hospital, Bexhill Hospital and Conquest Hospital into two sites at Eastbourne District General Hospital and Bexhill Hospital.

This would enable patients to have quicker access to tests and treatment and more input from the most senior clinicians. It would also enable one-stop clinics, reducing the number of appointments patients need to attend.

Cardiology

For cardiology, the proposal is to improve care at both the Conquest Hospital, Hastings and Eastbourne District General Hospital (DGH) by creating new cardiac response teams at the front doors and in the emergency departments (EDs). This would ensure that people are assessed quicker, when they first come into the hospital, meaning they would start receiving specialist care straight away.

In addition, the proposal also includes concentrating the most highly specialised cardiac services, needed by just 3% of the cardiac patients our services see each year, at one or other hospital site.

Find out more about the proposals to improve cardiology and ophthalmology services in East Sussex.

‘Living Well in East Sussex’ survey to inform adult social care plans

Together with its residents and partners, East Sussex County Council is developing a long-term plan, its strategy, for adult social care.

This will set the direction of adult social care for everyone who has — or will have — care and support needs within the county, the projects and services that support them and their carers and families.

The ‘Living Well in East Sussex’ survey, which ran in August and September, was the starting point for the strategy, and almost 500 people completed it.

According to the survey, residents are concerned about the cost of living; isolation or connection with others; not having enough care, support or adaptations in their home; and accessible services, facilities, and information.

Key themes to residents living a ‘good life’, highlighted by the survey, are:

having enough money
connecting with friends, family and neighbours
their home
having hobbies or volunteering
being active and looking after themselves

The survey responses are being reviewed, and feedback will help organisers plan discussions at a range of focus group events during the next two months.

A big ‘thank you’ to everyone who completed the survey and all of the County Council’s partners who helped promote and share the news about it.

Talks with East Sussex Adult Social Care staff, independent sector care providers, NHS colleagues and wider stakeholders will follow in the new year, informed by what people have said are their priorities via the survey and the focus groups.

Latest equality survey wants to learn about you to aid service delivery

Refreshed ‘About You’ equality surveys have been launched by East Sussex County Council to ensure its policies, services and activities are fair, accessible and inclusive to all members of staff and service users.

Confidential data collected through the equality monitoring surveys help the County Council understand who accesses its services (or not) and how experiences vary among the county’s different groups and workforce.

The County Council uses the answers from the surveys to:

Identify trends or gaps to compare the response with local population data, and review access to and outcomes of services
Ensure barriers to a service are removed, including holding meetings in an accessible venue or providing all written information in advance
Identify where there is a need for action, define what action is needed, implement it and then monitor whether it achieves the desired improvement

PNA report shows East Sussex’s pharmaceutical needs are satisfactory

Essential pharmaceutical services in each local authority across East Sussex are satisfactory, according to the latest Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment (PNA) report.

The report, which did not identify gaps in essential pharmacy services in the county, was conducted using detailed travel time analyses and local surveys of pharmacy providers and dispensaries.

The report informs NHS England’s decisions about opening new pharmacies and commissioning of pharmaceutical services, including the development and improvement of pharmaceutical services in East Sussex.

The PNA report was approved by East Sussex County Council’s Health and Wellbeing Board on 29 September.

A number of recommendations were made by the Board following the approval of the PNA report, including:

Improving choice in the evenings and weekends could be achieved by commissioning an extended hours service from existing providers, particularly in Lewes, Rother and Wealden council areas
Better access to necessary services in evenings and at weekends could also be enabled by improvements in public transport in rural East Sussex
Current plans for housing developments in the county would not require a new pharmacy

Trends in the number of pharmacies have shown a gradual reduction at national and regional level since the last report in 2017.

The public consultation indicated that the purpose of the PNA report is well understood and is sufficient in informing the NHS about market entry decisions and commissioning future services.

Listen to the latest NHS Sussex News podcasts

A series of podcasts by NHS Sussex are available by searching for ‘NHS Sussex News’ and freely subscribing or following it so you never miss the latest episode.

The NHS Sussex News podcast is available on all major podcast platforms: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and Deezer. You can also hear the latest episode on your Alexa smart-speaker by saying: “Alexa, enable NHS Sussex News” and then in the future “Alexa, play NHS Sussex News”.

Recent podcasts include an interview with Bert Williams MBE who is President and co-founder of Brighton & Hove Black History Month.

Bert celebrates the contribution of ethnically diverse communities to our society – including within health and care services – as NHS Sussex celebrated and supported Black History Month in October.

There is also a chat with Sussex GP Ragu Rajan who explains about some of the things we can all do to help reduce the pressure on the NHS this winter, including using the 111 service or seeing your local pharmacist for advice and guidance.