New WiFi for Ravensknowle
“Following our report Ravensknowle installed WiFi in early 2020. It’s been a lifeline to the residents, especially during Covid-19. They can continue to keep in touch with loved ones until restrictions are eased.”
Healthwatch Kirklees completed an Enter and View visit to Ravensknowle Road, a care home in Dalton, Huddersfield in November 2019.
We visited this service to observe and gather comments from people living at the home about what worked well at the service and anything Ravensknowle could do to help improve this experience.
Ravensknowle is run by the Bridgwood Trust and provides accommodation and support for individuals with learning disabilities.
For more information, please download the final report.
For more information, please download the final report.
What is an Enter and View visit?
It’s a visit to a publicly funded health or social care service led by Authorised Representatives from Healthwatch Kirklees. We go into day services, care homes, hospital wards, GP surgeries, etc and we speak to the people using those services to find out what they think. We can do this at agreed times or do unannounced spot checks. It’s not an inspection of the service, but we use the visit to make sure that people are able to get the support they need from that service and to learn more about the service. We then report back to providers and commissioners of service and, where appropriate, to the regulators.
The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, imposes a duty on “services-providers” to allow entry by authorised representatives of Local Healthwatch organisations.
Being able to visit local services is therefore an important tool for Healthwatch Kirklees to carry out its statutory activities.
The law places a duty on services providers to allow authorised representatives of Healthwatch Kirklees to enter certain premises and observe certain activities. There are criteria that Healthwatch Kirklees must meet in order to exercise the power of entry, which includes your consent as a provider of care.
Find out more about Enter and View and read more of our reports here.
How you can help make services better in your community.
In order to do these Enter and View visits, we need a team of trained, volunteer Authorised Representatives. Authorised Representatives are trained volunteers who assist in every stage of the visit – they help to arrange it, to complete it, and to report back the findings. There is guidance and support to do this provided by our Volunteer Coordinator, Katherine Sharp. If you are interested in doing this role, just get in touch with Katherine to express an interest.
All of our “Authorised Representatives” will receive training in:
- Equality and Diversity
- Confidentiality
- Safeguarding
- Dementia awareness and good practice
- Enter and View principles and processes, which includes the development of skills to enable the volunteer to:
- carry out an E&V visit
- develop the volunteers’ confidence in carrying out visits
- familiarise the volunteer with examples of good/bad/mediocre practice in the care environment
- how to engage with residents, relatives and staff
- record and report feedback
- identify areas where assistance/ improvement is required and to identify good practice
- report writing
