There were no declarations of interest.

The minutes of the meeting held on 5 October 2018 were approved as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

This position is currently vacant. Members are asked to put forward nominations at the meeting for consideration.

Councillor Khales Uddin Ahmed nominated Councillor Rachael Saunders for the position of Vice-Chair of the Housing Scrutiny Committee.

Councillor Khales Uddin Ahmed nominated Councillor Rachael Saunders for the position of Tower Hamlets Labour Member representative on the Inner North East London Joint Health and Overview Scrutiny Committee (INEL JHOSC).

Councillor Saunders agreed to accept the positions.

RESOLVED

To appoint Councillor Rachael Saunders as Vice-Chair and Member of the INEL JHOSC.

This paper submits an update on the recommendations of the Health Scrutiny Sub-Committee’s Challenge Session on Children & Young People’s Mental Health Services (CAMHS) which was undertaken in 2016.

The Committee heard an update from Ronke Martins-Taylor, Divisional Director Youth and Commissioning, on the Children and Young Peoples Mental Health Service action plan. Ms Martins-Taylor apologised to the Committee for the delay in publishing the action plan. It was noted that the reasons for special urgency were included in the agenda pack published prior to the winter break. Key points from each recommendation were briefly summarised, these included:

1.    The Council are working with Tower Hamlets Clinical Commissioning Group and the voluntary sector to strengthen early intervention services.

2.    Tower Hamlets has a record number of schools, 97%, accredited with the Healthy Schools Accreditation.

3.    Parent and infant emotion health and wellbeing training was delivered in 2016/17 as part of the Tower Hamlets Together training. 

4.    Data is being scrutinised to investigate if there is a correlation between care leavers and teenage pregnancy.

5.    A new integrated young people’s health and wellbeing service will begin in 2018 and will target young care leavers.

6.    Co-commissioned specialist Community Adult Mental Health Service (CAMHS) was launched to support young people experiencing mental health issues and have been in contact with the youth justice system.

7.    Empowering service users to contribute to service development.

8.    Christine McInnes, Service Head Education and Partnership, has been working with families to raise awareness of mental health issues via transformation projects.

9.    Improving cultural awareness of mental health issues. A pilot delivered by Tree4Life, trained local women in delivering mental health first aid.

10.Reducing stigma in mental health via a ‘Flourishing Minds’ pilot.

11.Reviewing the workforce to make it more reflective of the community. Core Bangladeshi employees were regarded as cultural consultants for the review.

12.Improving engagement with children and families in mental health awareness- The Children and Families team delivered training sessions for Parents at schools.  

13.The next Children and Family System Review will consider auditing children’s centres.

14.That the Council and Tower Hamlets Clinical Commissioning Group raise awareness of mental health and available support services to non-mental health related staff.

Questions and comments from the Committee:

Councillor Mustaquim asked under what criteria are the young people admitted to the specialist CAMHS. Ms Martins-Taylor explained that the service is provided on a needs assessment basis. She advised Members to get in touch with her via email if they wanted to view a copy of the assessment criteria.

Councillor Asad said he was pleased with the Action Plan. With regard to recommendation one in the Action Plan he asked if an ethnic breakdown of the 123 people supported was available. In addition to this he asked what methods were used to support parent’s emotional wellbeing and whether the Community Commissioning Panel was representative of the community.

The Committee heard a presentation from Chris Lovitt, Assistant Director Public Health, on loneliness and watched a video on two projects that were delivered in the borough to address the problem.

The first project was some research conducted by account3 on community perspectives on loneliness. Account3 trained twenty volunteers to engage with people over fifty on the topic of loneliness.

The second project was titled Action on Loneliness and was delivered in care homes. This was a befriending scheme based on mutual interests. The project was a success and greatly valued by the care homes, however due to specialist knowledge and time and cost related to supporting volunteers it was not continued beyond the end date.

There was a stakeholder event on the report and recommendations from that event can be found on page 39 of the agenda reports pack.

Mr Lovitt concluded his presentation and asked the Committee for advice on how to take the work forward.

The Chair opened the meeting for comments.

Dr Sam Everington, Chair THCCG, said that the projects addressed the cross cutting theme of compassion and kindness against health and loneliness. He wondered how this kind of work could be made sustainable and suggested it could be embedded into social prescribing. 

Other Committee Members considered utilising part of the New Town Hall as a social space for isolated people.

The Chair highlighted the difficulty in defining loneliness. She said that although one might typically think of older people as being lonely, she knew of constituents who were younger and experiencing mental health issue who would also fit into the lonely category.

David Burbidge, Healthwatch representative, spoke about the link between loneliness and death. He used the Nottingham Warden Scheme as a case study and one potential solution to the issue. He said isolated people were visited by a community warden daily. He also said the miners community in Nottingham set up a Welfare Café where people with mental health issues could go for a hot drink and have a friendly conversation on what was troubling them.

He mentioned that many elderly people in the LGBT community in Tower Hamlets are experiencing loneliness and experiencing the additional burden of having to pay the bedroom tax.

The Committee broadly agreed that the Council should keep an eye on the London wide strategy on loneliness and explore opportunities to get involved with it.

There was a discussion on successful community projects that had brought people together, these included: Chatter Natter at St Andrews, Furry Tales – targeting people with dementia, mental health café and gardening allotment schemes.

Chris Lovitt said the presentation heard today supports the idea that loneliness is an issue in the borough and that it is linked to physical and mental health. It was suggested that efforts to tackle the problem should be embedded throughout Council strategies.

Denise Radley said that there is a loneliness strand in the Ageing Well strategy. There was a discussion on potentially linking combating loneliness to social value  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.2

The Committee heard a presentation from Alwen Williams, CEO Bart’s Health Trust and Kelly Jupp, Maternity Management Team at Bart’s Health.

Having heard a number of recommendations from the Health Scrutiny Committee eighteen months ago, a Maternity Partnership Board was set up to address the challenges. The Board made successes in five key areas, these were: safety, workforce, staff, partnership and staff wellbeing.

1.    Ten secure doors have been installed and an electronic baby tag monitoring system has been introduced as well as an abduction policy implemented.

2.    The recruitment web page has been revised to include maternity team direct contact information and promote live vacancies.  There is a 94% fill rate, one midwife to twenty-eight patients and two labour ward co-ordinators have been recruited. Staff members are required to sign up to both day and night shifts.

3.    Overnight stays for partners has been introduced.

4.    There has been greater partnership work with Healthwatch Tower Hamlets and the voluntary sector via Social Action for Health maternity board.

5.    Staff wellbeing initiatives have been introduced for midwifery team and wider support staff such as administrative workers.

With regard to the improvement plan, speakers were confident that the amber ratings will improve to green by March 2018.

The Chair opened the meeting to questions or comments from the Committee. 

Dr Sam Everington, Chair of THCCG, thanked the team for their work. He said this was a fantastic turnaround given the pressures in a hospital setting.

The Chair said that she was very impressed with the report and was glad that things were moving in the right track.

Councillor Asad asked how Brexit might affect the employment of midwives. Lucie Butler, Director of Nursing, Midwifery & Governance responded that recruitment efforts were going well and they had not seen a negative impact as a result of Brexit as of yet. The CEO of Bart’s Trust informed the Committee of plans to recruit more apprentices.

David Burbidge asked if the newly installed secure doors affected people with disabilities. Speakers assured Mr Burbidge that the doors were accessible and visitors could rely on reception staff to provide support in opening the doors. 

It was noted that the carbon monoxide quick kits were due to arrive shortly.

The Chair thanked the Maternity Team at Bart’s for their presentation.

RESOLVED

To note the report.

There was no other business.