1 Adrian Chant from Oxfordshire's Local Involvement Network (LINk) Val Wilson Oxfordshire County Council

2 We will talk about HEARSAY! which is an event led by people who use adult social care in Oxfordshire How it developed How it works HEARSAY! could work as part of the council’s local account - one way of hearing what people want to tell us

3 Val Wilson Taking Part Team Our job is to make sure people who do or could use social and community services their families, partners and friends are involved in how services are planned, organised and delivered

4 Involvement in Making strategies Monitoring the quality of services Recruiting staff How to spend money How to save money Improving services Choosing organisations to run services

5 Adult Social Care How are we doing? What people tell us What we have found out – performance What we have found out - research How could we improve? Are we getting better?

6 To assess our performance for CQC We asked people How well are we performing against these targets and indicators?

7 People said Don’t ask us about the things you care about

8 Ask us what we care about most – for example there are too many strangers visiting how the council is doing at those things what we most want to change

9 Tell us what you are going to do about it your progress what you have done what you haven’t been able to do and why

10 The Oxfordshire Local Involvement Network (LINk) worked with The Taking Part Team and the Performance Information Unit in social care Community groups Voluntary organisations People who use services Family, friends, partners

11 HEARSAY!

12 Adrian Chant Oxfordshire Local Involvement Network

13 HEARSAY! The LINk invite: People who use or could use adult social care with their friends, carers and family members Senior leaders responsible for adult social care in Oxfordshire

14 Guests tell senior leaders from the county council what matters most to them Guests tell the leaders what they would most like to see changed and talk about problems and possible solutions

15 The council responds by making a commitment to whatever changes are possible and reports back to the LINk

16 In March 2011 the 70 guests told us they Need to get their personal budgets more quickly Want to find out about support, activities, advice available in their communities Want personalisation to be really personal - organised to suit individuals and not the council’s systems Are worried about the quality of support at home when provided by private businesses

17 The council has Trained a team of people with experience of support at home to find out more about the quality of other people’s services and what needs to improve Reviewed the way people get self directed support with staff, brokers and people who use social care services Asked people what they want information about and how they want to get it

18 How we make sure they do it The council gives us quarterly reports for the public on progress made There is continuing involvement by people who use services and their families, friends and partners in monitoring the changes promised We follow people’s personal stories to see how things are really working

19 Local issues? Oxfordshire’s User Experience survey Compared to the rest of the country people’s responses to national questions showed the same quite high level of satisfaction Answers to local questions about issues raised at Hearsay showed lower satisfaction

20 What we’ve learned Ask people what matters to them Make changes in places people care about most Outside organisation to make sure we do what we say (or explain why we didn’t) Keeping in touch and doing it differently if it isn’t achieving outcome

21 Why Hearsay works People told us what they wanted to talk about People chose the way to do it People chose how to monitor changes and improvements People are involved throughout and the council can keep responding to improve outcomes