Communications & involvement report (March – April 2021)

Recent media coverage

We’ve issued 20 media releases in the past two months, primarily focusing on different elements of the Covid-19 vaccination programme, as well as mental wellbeing and cancer awareness. As part of this work, we’ve also arranged several radio and television interviews, in partnership with the regional vaccination team and our colleagues at NHS England.

• The five year plan to improve young people’s mental health in Leeds – A plan to improve young people’s mental health has been officially approved by health and care leaders in the city.
• Unpaid carers urged to get vital Covid-19 vaccination – The NHS in Leeds is urging people aged 16 and over who provide vital unpaid care and support for others to come forward for their vaccination.
• April is Stress Awareness Month – Let’s Be Aware! As part of Stress Awareness Month during April, the NHS in Leeds is asking people of all ages to be more aware of the signs of stress in themselves, friends, colleagues and family.
• Plan ahead to stay well this Easter – With the Easter bank holiday fast approaching, health professionals are encouraging residents to plan ahead to stay well.
• People urged to get on board as Leeds launches vaccination minibus – The NHS has teamed up with Leeds City Council, and local voluntary and community organisations to launch a vaccination minibus service.
• March is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month – “If in doubt, get checked out” – “If in doubt, get checked out”, NHS in Leeds supports Ovarian Cancer Awareness month
• Pop-up vaccination centre set up at the Bilal Centre in Harehills – A new pop-up vaccination centre will be opening at the Bilal Centre in Leeds this week to help encourage people in the local community to get their jabs

You can find all our press releases on our website: https://www.leedsccg.nhs.uk/news/

Current communications campaigns & activity

• CCG annual report – we compiled the CCG’s statutory annual report and submitted the first draft to NHS England and NHS Improvement in April. The final version is due in June. This is always a significant undertaking, but never more so than during the pandemic.
• Covid-19 vaccination programme – our team continues to lead the #TeamLeeds communications approach, working closely with all our partners to provide updates for health and social care staff, elected members and other key stakeholders. In addition, we are linking in with national and regional efforts to increase vaccine confidence, developing creative ways to engage with our diverse communities while also managing expectations for those eager to get vaccinated.  The last two months have been an especially busy time for vaccination communications, with the launch of two new initiatives – a pop up clinic and roving bus – as well as frequently updated guidance. However, with the help of a communications plan that employs a combination of media, social media, local publicity and a range of community channels, the city’s vaccination programme is going from strength to strength. To ensure that this significant programme is captured for posterity, we are also leading a photography project and will be organizing an exhibition later in the year.
• Covid-19 response in addition to the vaccination programme, we continue to support efforts to remind people to access services appropriately and support efforts to get people tested should they have symptoms. We also continue to work with colleagues in partner organisations to develop and promote the over 60s  wellbeing safety campaign, Take Care Leeds.

Other key areas of work include:

• Campaigns – we are working with colleagues to develop new campaigns and communications plans around antimicrobial resistance, advance care planning and mental health. We continue to support regional and national health campaigns, for example around stress awareness, bowel and ovarian cancer. Our team has continued to lead on communications around children and young people’s mental health through the evolving MindMate programme.
• City/regional meetings and representation – colleagues across the team continue to hold key roles in city and regional communications and involvement networks.
• Internal communications – we have continued our regular briefings for primary care and CCG staff and support our chief executive with regular team briefs via Microsoft Teams Live. These have been especially important during recent weeks, as our transformation programme, Shaping our Future, is currently being implemented. We continue to use Facebook to engage staff, for example, with health and wellbeing advice for stress awareness month and quizzes and joke competitions for Comic Relief.
• Primary care communications – we continue to support practices by providing patient-facing materials, social media advice and media relations guidance, including press releases to highlight good news stories. We have worked closely with primary care networks to ensure they have up to date resources and materials for their vaccination clinics.
• System resilience – we continue to work with colleagues across the city to ensure clear, consistent and effective communications during this period of unprecedented pressure on health and care services.

Involvement activity

As a result of the ongoing pandemic, most of our involvement activities currently take place online.

•  The Avenue Surgery closure – we held a follow-up meeting with PPG members to discuss the outcomes of the engagement and provide feedback. The involvement report is complete and going to PCOG in May.
• CCG volunteers – we continue to provide online mentoring. Volunteers have been supporting our collection of vaccine patient feedback.
• Childhood trauma insight review – we are working with the Children’s Commissioning Team to support a trauma-informed approach in Leeds. The report is now on our website: www.leedsccg.nhs.uk/get-involved/have-your-say/insight-reviews/insight-review-into-childhood-trauma/
• COVID-19 vaccination experience – we are focusing on collecting feedback from primary care settings. We heard from 4044 people in March and April and are developing ways we can hear more from diverse communities.
• COVID-19 community champions – work is ongoing with regional and local colleagues to support local communities to access up-to-date fact-based information about the vaccination programme.
• Grey literature library and insight repository – we are currently in the process of documenting the specification needs for the grey literature library so that we can then begin to scope out possible providers.
• Left Shift Blueprint – over the last two months we have been working with Qa Research to develop an involvement exercise to involve local people in the Left Shift Blueprint. The Involvement work will include a series of focus groups and telephone interviews that will take place in May 2021.
• Minor Injuries Campaign – over the last two months we have commissioned Brainbox and Magpie to carry out insight and develop a minor injuries campaign to start in the summer of 2021.
• Networked Data Lab – we are providing involvement input to this national programme to deliver data-driven insights on common problems facing the health and care system.
• Patient Assurance Group (PAG) – four CCG volunteers attended the April PAG to provide assurance on the involvement plan for the Left Shift Blueprint engagement work.
• Patient participation groups (PPGs) – we’re collecting feedback about what work PPGs have been supporting during the pandemic. Responses will feed into this year’s PPG Awareness Week and help inform our PPG strategy for the city.
• Planned and long-term care procurements – dermatology procurement scoping document is at final draft stage, and we are completing the Combined Impact Assessment and insight review for ENT and Audiology.
• Primary care network engagement – we have restarted our proactive work with Crossgates PCN, and held three meetings in this period to plan engagement with PPGs in the network.
• Stroke work – over the last two months we have been supporting Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust with their work to redesign stroke services in Leeds.

Upcoming activity

• Annual reports – over the next two months we will be finalizing and publishing our CCG and involvement annual reports for 2020-21. These will be completed in May and June 2021 and will be available on the CG website.
• Campaigns – as services safely restart, we will be working with colleagues to develop new campaigns and communications plans to support the system and our patients, for example around appropriate use of A&E and minor injuries units, as well as mental health services. We will also be working with primary care colleagues on a new zero tolerance campaign to tackle abuse of staff and with city digital team to highlight the innovative work taking place in Leeds. We will continue to support regional and national campaigns.
• Covid-19 – we will continue to support the Leeds system with clear and consistent communications about coronavirus and the vaccination programme. We will continue to work with partners to analyse insight collected during the pandemic and the vaccination programme to feed into future communications.
•  Engagements – we will be working with commissioners to develop and implement engagement plans for community mental health transformation funding.
• Involvement network – due to the pandemic, work to develop a citywide network was paused. We will be revisiting the project in June 2021.
• Left Shift Blueprint – over the next two months we will be working to outline how local people have influenced the development of the LSBP. This will involve pulling together insight from our involvement activities, developing a communications and involvement plan and commissioning a deliberative event.
• Mental Health (MH) community commissioning review – involvement activity is planned to restart again in May 2021.
• Patient experience – over the next two months we will start to review the way we support commissioners and providers to routinely collect patient experience.