The Chairman will provide the Committee with an update on recent meetings he has attended and other matters affecting the Committee.
Minutes:
Interfacing to the Better Care Fund Work
The Department of Health ‘Guidance to support Local Authorities and their partners to deliver effective health scrutiny’ states that:
‘The primary aim of health scrutiny is to strengthen the voice of local people, ensuring that their needs and experiences are considered as an integral part of the commissioning and delivery of health services and that those health services are effective and safe.’
Substantial changes to health services are currently being commissioned and implemented through the Better Care Fund initiatives. In response to this we are in the process of re-organising the Member Reference Groups (MRGs) of our Committee. I’m pleased to say that most of the proposed MRGs are already in close liaison with the Clinical Commissioning Groups. We will be returning to this in some detail at Item 9 today.
Increased Load on the Acute Hospitals
All of our Surrey Acute Hospitals were required to accept much heavier Emergency Department workloads this winter and indeed in some of the summer months too. This is a pattern reflected across the Country.
We will be hearing about the particular case of Ashford and St Peter’s Trust this morning. The presentation will be made on behalf of the partner organisations which have worked together to alleviate the difficulties as they arose and which are trying to prevent recurrence in the future.
Staffing Issues in the Health Service
The difficulty of recruiting and retaining suitable Health practitioners appears to be a growing problem across most of Surrey. Examples include:
- Central Surrey Health and Surrey Downs CCG cite the problem as a major factor leading to the closure of part of Leatherhead Community Hospital
- The Care Quality Commission found that it contributed to some of the improvements required following its inspection of St Peter’s Hospital
- The Surrey Heath CCG report difficulty in recruiting suitable staff for their 3 Locality Hubs
- Public Health’s Report at Item 7 on today’s Agenda addresses the problem with relevance to Health Visitors and School Nurses.
As greater integration between Health and Social Services is achieved there will be an increased requirement for practitioners to be able to work across what are currently distinct disciplines. There have to be pathways established for practitioners to gain the necessary skills.
Staff released from the Acute Hospital setting may require some re-training to enable them to move to other parts of the Health Service.
One of the streams of work in the Better Care Fund focuses on this issue and it will be addressed at the next meeting of the Adult Social Care Select Committee on 10 April.
Vanguard Project
North East Hampshire and Farnham CCG is leading a consortium which has been chosen to carry out a Vanguard Project in the Primary and Acute Care Systems (PACS) category. Other members of the consortium include Frimley Health, Surrey and Borders Partnership, and Surrey County Council.
Over 5 years the project will involve developing local health and care services to keep people well and to bring home care, mental health and community nursing, GP services and hospitals together. Funding for the Project will enable integration of services to proceed at an accelerated rate and to demonstrate leadership to other health and social care groupings across the Country.
Mental and Emotional Health of Young People
This topic has received a great deal of media coverage over the past few weeks and the Committee may wish to examine the implications for the young people of Surrey at some future point.