Agenda and minutes

Details of the arrangements in case of fire or other events that might require the meeting room or building’s evacuation will be announced.

The Chairman advised all present of the action to be taken in the event of

fire or other emergency requiring evacuation of the building.

(if any) – receive.

Apologies were received from Councillor Fred Osborne.

Officers present:

Joe Coogan – Assistant Director – Commissioning, LBH

Tom O’Vens – Tansformation, Adult Social Care, LBH

John Tench – Social Care and Health, LBH

Sarah Haider, Havering Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)

Havering Local Involvement Network (LINk) members present:

Emma Lextion, Vice-Chair

Cliff Reynolds, Vice-Chair

Anne Hinds-Murray, Shaw Trust

Members are invited to disclose any interests in any of the items on the agenda at this point of the meeting. Members may still disclose an interest in an item at any time prior to the consideration of the matter.

There were no disclosures of interest.

To receive an update from the Assistant Director – Commissioning, Adult Social Care on the Council consultation on options for a Local Healthwatch for Havering.

The Chairman explained that the meeting had been called for officers to explain to the Committee the final results of the consultation on a Local Healthwatch model for Havering. Recent Executive Decisions on Healthwatch had recently been published but this did not affect the purpose of this meeting.

The main themes to come out of the consultation included that a strong local voice was required for Havering and that a joint model with e.g. Barking & Dagenham would not be suitable. Another subject raised was the importance of building on the LINK’s legacy and the efforts of LINk volunteers. A multi-faceted approach was favoured overall but with a local presence in Havering. A possible sharing of back office Healthwatch functions was viewed as acceptable.

Suggestions made during the consultation for the structure of Healthwatch included making use of the Council’s Carepoint facility, having non-executive members on the Healthwatch board and using local stakeholders to recruit to Healthwatch positions. There had been a fairly even split of responses between the three models suggested  as well as a number of responses that did not indicate support for a specific model.

The Committee agreed that the response rate to the consultation (14 submissions) was very low. Officers confirmed that the consultation had been advertised on the Council’s website and Twitter page and also via a global e-mail. Further responses were fed in from meetings held during the consultation so that, in total, approximately 200 people’s views were represented.

As regards funding, the current estimated figure was £107,000 in addition to the £57,000 currently used to fund Havering LINk. Funding for the complaints advocacy service was expected to be in the region of £58,000. Additional funding nationally of £5 million had also recently been announced. The date for the announcement of the confirmation of funding levels as well as the release of Department of Health guidelines on Healthwatch had been confirmed as 20 December 2012.

The overall option for Local Healthwatch in Havering had been confirmed as option B in the consultation – a Havering stand-alone organisation procured by London Borough of Havering as it was felt this offered the most flexibility in the Healthwatch model.

The complaints advocacy service was currently procured on a pan-London basis but would be commissioned by the Council from 1 April 2013. Existing data indicated that around one third of complaints by Havering residents about NHS services related to services outside of Havering itself. It had therefore been recommended to the Cabinet portfolio holder that Havering should join a pan-London model currently being developed by 27 London boroughs. This was considered to represent better value for money and would consist of a two-year contract initially. There would be an option at the end of this period to continue with a pan-London approach or to bring the complaints advocacy service back under Local Healthwatch in Havering.

The Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) was originally going to move entirely into Healthwatch. This had now changed however with Healthwatch providing only  ...  view the full minutes text for item 31.

To consider any other item of which the Chairman is of the opinion, by means of special circumstances which shall be specified in the minutes, that the item shall be considered at the meeting as a matter of urgency.

There was no urgent business.