by Richard WestI went to the launch of the Voices Into Action today, a report by the Care Quality Commission about how they will involve people and work with us to improve services.
Barbara Young, the Chair of CQC, made a promise that people who use services will have a voice. It sounded good, they want action not words.
Francis Hasler, the head of involvement said they want to hear back from people and take action and help set standards. They will be making things accessible and checking how it's working; this will mean health and social care making changes!
We had a talk from Tina Coldham, she is an expert by experience who uses mental health services. She has been around the country looking at services to find out what is happening now. She said staff need to change their attitudes towards disabled people and we need to challenge services if they are not good enough. She thought it was important that these services were more joined up and working better together.
I then answered some questions about forms on the CQC website. These were not accessible and we were asked about what to do. I suggested they need to make a few changes!
Another talk was from Dame Joan Bakewell about the voice for older people using care services. She had seen the BBC Panorama programme about how older people are badly treated in hospital. She said "it was shocking and very upsetting". She agreed that action needed to be taken, not words. You can read the report and see a picture of me meeting her here
I felt that this launch party was a good start by CQC in setting out what they wanted to do to listen to what people say and to take action. I think they will hear some big changes need to be made for disabled people and especially health care for people with learning disabilities for example. For me, it still left a question about what this all means for people with learning disability from black and ethnic minority communities. CQC will need to show us in NAGLDE (The National Advisory Group on Learning Disability and Ethnicity) that Voices Into Action can work for everyone, this means they need to be what we call 'culturally competent' as well.
Francis Hasler, the head of involvement said they want to hear back from people and take action and help set standards. They will be making things accessible and checking how it's working; this will mean health and social care making changes!
We had a talk from Tina Coldham, she is an expert by experience who uses mental health services. She has been around the country looking at services to find out what is happening now. She said staff need to change their attitudes towards disabled people and we need to challenge services if they are not good enough. She thought it was important that these services were more joined up and working better together.
I then answered some questions about forms on the CQC website. These were not accessible and we were asked about what to do. I suggested they need to make a few changes!
Another talk was from Dame Joan Bakewell about the voice for older people using care services. She had seen the BBC Panorama programme about how older people are badly treated in hospital. She said "it was shocking and very upsetting". She agreed that action needed to be taken, not words. You can read the report and see a picture of me meeting her here
I felt that this launch party was a good start by CQC in setting out what they wanted to do to listen to what people say and to take action. I think they will hear some big changes need to be made for disabled people and especially health care for people with learning disabilities for example. For me, it still left a question about what this all means for people with learning disability from black and ethnic minority communities. CQC will need to show us in NAGLDE (The National Advisory Group on Learning Disability and Ethnicity) that Voices Into Action can work for everyone, this means they need to be what we call 'culturally competent' as well.
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