Agenda item

Report attached.

Mr Ian Tompkins, Director of Communications and Engagement, East London Health Care Partnership, provided a verbal report which detailed current issues within the remit of the Sub-Committee. 

The Partnership was established with a shared goal to help people live healthy and independent lives with the mission of protecting vital services and to provide better treatment and care built around the needs of local people, safely and conveniently, closer to home.

The Partnership’s top priority was to reduce the pressures on hospitals and accident and emergency departments, when often people should be supported by NHS 111 staff, GPs, community staff and resources in their own homes.

Attempting to improve the hundreds of health and care services for the two million people of east London, a population expected to grow by around 30,000 more people in 2017 alone would be a complex task, however many beneficial changes could be made quite simply.

Significant improvements were being made by joining services up and people were starting to benefit. 

The Partnership’s main priorities were:

·         To help local people live healthy and independent lives.

·         To improve local health and care services and outcomes

·         To have the right staff in the right place with the right resources to meet the needs of the community.

·         To be a well-run, efficient and open Partnership.

The Partnership was shaping the way it tackles its priorities around Barking, Havering and Redbridge; City of London and Hackney; Newham; Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest.

The Partnership would drive forward issues such as good quality urgent and emergency care for East London; the availability of special clinical treatment; a better use of buildings and facilities; the recruitment and retention of doctors, nurses and other health and care professionals; an increased use of digital technology to speed up the diagnosis and treatment of illness; and ways of working that will put a stop to duplication and unnecessary expense. The biggest single factor in the long term was to prevent ill health and deaths caused by the effects of lifestyle choices such as diet, lack of exercise and smoking.

The development of a Sustainability and Transformation Plan, which was submitted in draft form to NHS England and NHS Improvement in 2016, was the original reason why the East London and Health Care Partnership was established. 

The organisations behind the East London Health and Care Partnership included Clinical Commissions Groups, Provider Trusts and Councils.  The new commissioning arrangements aimed to ensure that commissioning was integrated around local people and significantly improved both services and health outcomes, by developing prevention and self-care; better primary and community services so that services were closer to home; and demand and capacity planning across hospitals.

The Partnership has been engaging with various key stakeholders over the past year, including the Police, Fire and Ambulance Services, professional associations, housing, education and local business organisations, the voluntary and charity sector, community groups and public and patient representatives.

The role of the fire brigade was questioned, upon which it was explained that the London Fire Brigade welcomed the Partnership working in conjunction with them during school visits. 

Clarification was sought as to whether the Partnership would work with local satellite medical centres and the feasibility of extended opening hours for these centres was questioned.  It was explained that some staff preferred shift work and that centres needed to work together to ensure an even distribution of workload, in particular in event of the closure of a GP practice whereby patients would be dispersed to various centres.  Discussion was held on the possible extension of the role of pharmacies to relieve the pressures on GP surgeries, during times of reduced funding.  The Partnership itself was not a statutory body and would therefore be unable to make any formal decisions, as these were made by member organisations, through their existing governing bodies or systems thus ensuring that decision making remained local.

Members noted the report and took the opportunity to thank Mr Tompkins for his verbal update.