Agenda item

The Health and Wellbeing Board is to receive a verbal update on COVID-19 recovery planning in relation to Surrey Heartlands Health and Care Partnership’s Recovery Strategy, supplementing the attached slides.

Steve Flanagan – CEO, CSH Surrey and Chair of ICS Recovery Board (Representative, North West Surrey Integrated Care Partnership and Community Provider voice)

Key points raised in the discussion:

1.      The Representative, North West Surrey Integrated Care Partnership and Community Provider voice noted the progress made in restoration and recovery since the last update to the Board in September and was impressed with the presentations and discussions made in previous items which highlighted key interlinkages and partnership work. 

2.      The Representative, North West Surrey Integrated Care Partnership and Community Provider voice outlined the response to the letter ‘Third Phase of NHS response to Covid-19’ in which the focus was on restoring services lost through wave one of the pandemic. Covid-19 had developed and strengthened partnership work across acute colleagues, community services as well as primary and social care; and the work on Surrey Heartlands’ Phase 3 plans was led by the Chief Executive of Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and the Recovery Director Surrey Heartlands ICS.

3.      The Representative, North West Surrey Integrated Care Partnership and Community Provider voice highlighted that Surrey Heartlands was being recognised nationally on its restoration response as for example its elective services were back up and running above target at 89% of pre-pandemic levels. The challenges encountered were on the diagnostic side with teams now working more effectively together and endoscopy was a challenge at the start of the year although it was now operating at 125% of its target.

4.      The Representative, North West Surrey Integrated Care Partnership and Community Provider voice provided updates from the two workstreams which had a significant overlap with the Health and Wellbeing Strategy:

·         Emotional Wellbeing - led by the Chief Executive, Surrey and Borders Partnership, as well as the Director for Mental Health, Surrey Heartlands ICS and SRO for Mental Health, Frimley ICS (Priority Two Sponsor); particularly as Covid-19 significantly impacted on mental health.

·         Equalities and Health Inequalities (formally known as ‘Hidden Harm’) - led by the Director of Public Health (SCC), the Surrey Heartlands ICS Director of Children's and Learning Disabilities Services and the and the Clinical Chair, Surrey Downs ICP; using the work of the CIA and other intelligence workstreams to identify and reduce multiple inequalities. 

5.    The Representative, North West Surrey Integrated Care Partnership and Community Provider voice noted the lessons learnt so far including the:

·         challenge of getting partners to work together more to ensure a system first approach which was more of a challenge for the recovery side which focussed on long-term fixes - which had subsequently improved.

·         challenge concerning the governance of the Surrey Heartlands ICS Recovery Programme and alignment with statutory powers.

·         benefit of harmonising more back office activity such as finance, IT, and personnel amalgamating services across Surrey Heartlands for financial efficiency towards the betterment of healthcare. 

6.      The Chairman commended the groundwork made regarding both the practicalities of restoration and recovery and the partnership work.

7.      The Chairman noted NHS England and NHS Improvement’s ‘Integrating Care: Next steps to building strong and effective integrated care systems across England’ paper published last week. As a result the future direction of travel for Surrey Heartlands ICS including its Integrated Care System Strategy would need to be revised early next year in anticipation of the proposed legislative changes in which all health and care systems were expected to become Integrated Care Systems by 2021.

-       He emphasised that it would be a good opportunity to link all workstreams in with the work on the Health and Wellbeing Strategy to ensure that the health system was delivering the three key priorities, via a possible Board informal session next year.

RESOLVED:

That the Health and Wellbeing Board noted the verbal update and presentation slides.

Actions/further information to be provided:

1.      In relation to the NHS England and NHS Improvement’s paper ‘Integrating Care: Next steps to building strong and effective integrated care systems across England’ the Board will work with partners on the future direction of travel for Surrey Heartlands ICS including the revision of the Integrated Care System Strategy; linking all workstreams in with the work on the Health and Wellbeing Strategy to ensure that the health system was delivering the three key priorities, via a possible Board informal session next year.