Meeting documents

Adult, Community Services and Health Overview and Scrutiny Panel
Tuesday 11 May 2010

UADULT, COMMUNITY SERVICES AND HEALTH OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY PANEL

11 MAY 2010


PRESENT: Councillors Meadowcroft (Chairman), Mrs Endacott (Vice-Chairman), Baskerville, Mrs Evans, Lenton, Mrs Napier, Mrs Proctor and Mrs Yong.

Non-Member: Councillor Mrs Luxton

Also Present: Julie Burgess and John Jones (Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust); Carolyn Finlay and David Williams (Berkshire East Primary Care Trust); Tim Inkson (Care Quality Commission)

Officers: Ms Brewerton, Mr Herlinger, Mr A Scott, Mrs Shawcross and Mr Skerrow.
Upart i

105/09 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

An apology for absence was received from Councillor Majeed.

106/09 DECLARATIONS OF INTERESTSU

Councillor Lenton declared a Personal Interest in the Part II items as a Director of Windsor Housing

107/09 MINUTESU
    RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meeting of the Panel held on 8 March 2010 be approved subject to an amendment to Minute 96/09 – Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: Update on Financial Situation – to add that Mr Marek indicated that a copy of the report that had been submitted to the Trust’s Board would be circulated to Members.

108/09 DESIGNATION OF LAND AT HEATHERWOOD HOSPITAL

Members considered the report that was due to be submitted to Cabinet on the 27 May 2010 on the granting of delegated authority to the Lead Member for Adult and Community Services to make representations to the Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust on its proposal to remove the protected property status in respect of land at Heatherwood Hospital, Ascot. As there was concern that the services provided from the Heatherwood site would not be maintained it was considered that the Council’s response to the Trust should be to resist the application to ‘unprotect’ the site until such time as the Council was satisfied that the provision of the mandatory goods and services would be protected and further information provided regarding the Trust’s intentions.

In response to a number of questions raised by Members of the Panel, Ms Burgess, Chief Executive of the Trust, reassured Members that the Trust was committed to services continuing on the Heatherwood Hospital site and added that, over the next few years, the site would developed further to provide additional elective services. She commented upon the need for the Trust to operate on a smaller footprint in order to reduce overhead costs, stressed that the Trust had no plans to sell any land or buildings and explained that the unprotection of the land would provide the Trust with greater flexibility on how it used that land. Mrs Burgess explained that the Trust was unable to publish a long term service plan pending the findings of the “Care for the Future” review.

Arising from the general discussion, the Panel made the following comments on the report.

    Councillors Baskerville, Lenton, Meadowcroft and Mrs Yong were of the opinion that the Council should object to the proposal to remove the protected property status pending the production of further information as to how the un-protection of the land and buildings fitted in with the Trust’s overall Strategy for the site. The Trust should provide further detailed information and clarification as to the services that were to be retained on the site and how and where they were to be provided.

    As the Trust were able to centralise and rationalise its services now, in the light of the concerns raised by residents about the future of the Heatherwood site, the proposal should be withdrawn pending the production of a long term service plan for the site.

    Councillors Mrs Endacott, Mrs Napier and Mrs Proctor were supportive of the Trust’s proposal to unprotect the land to enable it to have flexibility to use the unprotected land. They were satisfied with the assurances that had been given by the Trust regarding the retention of services on the site and that the Trust had no intention to sell any land or buildings.

    It was considered that the Overview and Scrutiny Panel should have been consulted earlier on in the process.

    A number of Members were not satisfied that the final response to be made to the Trust should be delegated to the Lead Member.

    RESOLVED: That the Panel’s comments on the report, as outlined above, be forwarded to Cabinet for consideration.

109/09 VOICES INTO ACTION - ASSESSMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE

The Panel received a presentation from Mr Tim Inkson, Local Area Manager –Berkshire at the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on the role and powers of the Care Quality Commission. He commented upon the new requirement for all providers of health and adult social care to be registered with the CQC and referred upon the stronger enforcement powers that had been given to the CQC. He commented upon how the CQC would drive improvements in the quality of care by assessing the performance of organisations that commissioned and provide care and by undertaking special reviews of particular services or pathways of care.


He advised that the CQC’s aimed to work closely with the public, patients and all relevant stakeholders in order to get meaningful feedback on the care and services that was being provided by health and social care organisations and referred to the commitment that more weight would be given to peoples’ views and experiences of care. He explained that the CQC would try to make sure people were involved in decisions about their own care and would find new ways of involving people in the work of the CQC. He then went on to comment upon the role of Overview and Scrutiny and councillors in that process.

After Mr Inkson had answered a number of questions, the Chairman of the Panel thanked him for his presentation and advised that Members would be encouraged to contact the CQC should they have any concerns regarding any serious deficiencies in the provision of care in the area.

110/09 HEATHERWOOD AND WEXHAM PARK HOSPITALS NHS FOUNDATION TRUST - UPDATE ON FINANCIAL SITUATION

Members received an update on Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s current financial position. Ms Burgess, Chief Executive of the Trust advised that the Trust had reported an operation deficit of £9.9M for 2009/2010, which was in line with the Turnaround Plan and as forecast. It was noted that the Trust still had a Financial Risk Rating of 1 and it was unlikely that there would be any change in that rating in the short term.

Ms Burgess then responded to a number of questions from Members. In response to concerns raised about the Trust’s cash position, Ms Burgess commented upon how cash flow was being closely monitored, advised that there were still inefficiencies in the system that had to be addressed and explained how the surpluses being achieved were being used to reduce the budget deficit. She commented upon the reasons for the increase in agency spend and explained that it was not unusual for the Trust to have disputes with the Primary Care Trust on a payment of some invoices but explained that agreement was always reached between both parties and the disputes were satisfactorily resolved. She explained that further detailed financial information would be contained within the Trust’s Annual Accounts, which would be submitted to the Panel for consideration at its meeting in July.

111/09 SERVICE MONITORING REPORT

The Panel received and commented upon the latest service monitoring report for activity within the Adult, Community and Health Services during the period to 31 March 2010. It was noted that the Adult Social Care budget showed a projected under spend of £3k, which was £34k reduction in the £37k under spend reported in the previous month. Members congratulated the officers on their prudent financial management of the budget. In response to a number of questions, the Officers undertook to provide Members with an update on progress made to collect the overdue income from other local authorities in the area of learning disability and would provide Councillor Baskerville with an explanation for the higher that expected costs for the Alwyn Infant school feasibility (CK26).

112/09 WORK PROGRAMME

Members noted the items that had been identified for submission to the next meeting.

113/09 LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1972 – EXCLUSION OF THE PUBLIC
      RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That under Section 100(A)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the remainder of the meeting whilst discussion takes place on items 10 - 13 on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of part I of Schedule 12A of the Act.