Local Neighbourhood Care Service: user involvement in commissioning

Working with the Royal Borough of Greenwich, Healthwatch Greenwich supported service user and informal carer involvement in the procurement element of the commissioning process for Local Neighbourhood Care Services (LNCS). This report sets out the process that Healthwatch Greenwich undertook to support service users and informal carers to take part in the procurement element of the commissioning process. In total, 30 service users and informal carers helped to formulate the themes and questions for the commissioning panel and 12 sat on the panel to ask the questions.

While users and informal carers told us about a variety of factors that are important to them, those most valued included:

• Continuity of care staff
• Staff reliability
• Kindness, respect, friendliness, and understanding shown by care staff
• Competence in undertaking tasks
• Good communication of changes

The following are perceived as a source of dissatisfaction:

• Poor quality in completing caring tasks or incompetence and lack of initiative
• Staff unreliability
• Frequent changes of carer staff
• Lack of time for care staff to complete tasks (care staff in a hurry)
• Lack of communication of changes
• Lack of opportunities to provide meaningful feedback (not just tick box questionnaires)
• Lack of appropriate training for care staff

This feedback was used to formulate questions for the commissioning panel and to score applicants.  Most participants required 1-2-1 support to take part in panel interviews. While many found it challenging, all valued the opportunity of being involved in the commissioning process.