Agenda and draft minutes
Venue: M72 7th Floor, Town Hall, Mulberry Place, 5 Clove Crescent, London, E14 2BG
Contact: Alan Ingram, Democratic Services Tel: 020 7364 465 0842, E-mail: alan.ingram@towerhamlets.gov.uk
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APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE To receive any apologies for absence. Minutes: Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Councillor Abdul Asad and Councillor Lesley Pavitt, for whom Councillor Anna Lynch deputised.
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DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST PDF 48 KB To note any declarations of interest made by Members, including those restricting Members from voting on the questions detailed in Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act, 1992. See attached note from the Chief Executive.
Minutes: Councillor Anna Lynch declared a personal interest in connection with agenda item 4.2 – “Presentation from Barts and The London NHS Trust”. The declaration was made on the basis that Councillor Lynch was an employee of the Trust.
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UNRESTRICTED MINUTES PDF 74 KB To confirm as a correct record of the proceedings the unrestricted minutes of the ordinary meeting of Health Scrutiny Panel held on 21st June 2011. Minutes: Referring to discussions at the previous meeting relating to the composition of the Health and Wellbeing Board, the Chair reported that she had since asked a question at Council on the matter and would be requesting that the Chair of the Health Scrutiny Panel be appointed as a Board Member. She added that she had also met Ms Dianne Barham of THINk to agree joint working arrangements concerning the GP network.
RESOLVED
That the minutes of the meeting of the Panel held on 21 June 2011 be agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.
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REPORTS FOR CONSIDERATION |
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Presentation from the Care Quality Commission To receive a presentation from the Care Quality Commission, a key stakeholder. Minutes: The Chair thanked the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for attending the meeting and invited them to make their presentation.
Ms Jane Ray, Team Leader, stated that the object of the presentation was to give an overview of the work of the CQC in Tower Hamlets. Two Inspectors who were members of her team (James Pitts and Sariat Olatunji) were also present and could answer detailed queries.
She commented that the CQC brought together the Healthcare Commission and Mental Health Act Commissioners and part of its remit was to inspect the Mental Health Trust service. They also dealt with regulation of private doctors, private ambulance services and, more recently, dentists but GP inspections had been deferred for a year. London comprised the busiest healthcare region in the country and so had more compliance inspectors. Her team covered five London Boroughs but all worked closely together as many cross-boundary issues arose. There were eight CMC teams in London and hers included eight inspectors, two more of whom were being recruited to reflect additional work arising from dental practice inspections. Ms Ray provided further details as follows:-
The CQC representatives then responded to matters of detail put by the Panel members, including:-
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Presentation from Barts and The London NHS Trust To receive presentations from key stakeholders. Minutes: The Chair commented that the Panel would like to hear from the Barts and the London NHS Trust about the huge organisational changes arising from the new hospital facilities; issues relating to outpatients’ services; possible Government targets and what the Trust was choosing to measure.
Mr Steve Ryan then indicated that the Trust’s Board was to receive next day a business case to ensure improved care around all areas of treatment, based around care pathways. This applied to all parts of a process, e.g. cancer treatment was linked to education and prevention as well as the medical care system. The Board would be testing whether it could improve on what individual organisations could give after the merger and was creating a medical community. He then indicated that merged services would allow the Trust to become a bigger hitter, increasing the footpath of research in East London with academic endeavour. Some £6m could be saved in informatics when software and systems were merged.
Mr Peter Morris, Chief Executive of the Trust, added that the Board was at the first stage of developing an outline business case, following which there would be a tight programme of engagement with other stakeholders and bodies. In response to a query from the Chair, Mr Morris stated that the present conversation related both to what should happen and what would happen. Mobilisation of services to East London as a whole was a substantial challenge and it was necessary to shape the design and pathways of the organisation to ensure it delivered on the promise of improvement and to enable people to have a platform to help do that.
Replying to queries from those present, the Trust representatives indicated that:-
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To consider a progress report on the Transforming Adult Social Care and Efficiency Programme.
Report to follow Minutes: At the request of the Chair, Ms Deborah Cohen, Service Head Commissioning and Strategy, introduced the circulated report providing an update on the transformation of adult social care in Tower Hamlets. She then responded to questions put by the Panel with regard to: the need to empower people to ask for personal budgets and training up experts through experience to help with this; domiciliary care contracts; efforts for the provision of the London living wage to all employees of care service providers; the need to ensure home carers to have the skills to write cogent notes; home visits would be for a minimum of 30 minutes; the work of the brokerage team who would ensure that service users had the option of dipping in and out of having their budget managed by the local authority.
The Panel agreed
(1) That its thanks be recorded for the work undertaken by Helen Taylor, Acting Corporate Director, Adults’ Health & Wellbeing. (2) That the Panel’s feeling be recorded that permanent appointments are preferable for such senior management positions. (3) That the Panel be provided with the report submitted to the last Overview & Scrutiny Committee regarding with overspends in connection with domiciliary care contracts, together with details of the actual savings to be achieved.
The Chair thanked Ms Cohen for the report provided.
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ANY OTHER BUSINESS WHICH THE CHAIR CONSIDERS TO BE URGENT Minutes: There was no further business.
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