Agenda item

As part of the Council Continuous Improvement Model, to receive an update from officers on then Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2012-14 (report attached).

Under the Council Continuous Improvement Model, the Council’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy was due for review by the Committee at this point. The Group Director – Children, Adults and Housing explained that the Health and Wellbeing Board, chaired by the Leader of the Council, was quite a different model for Havering as it gave voting rights to officers as well as Members.

The strategy featured eight priority areas based on from the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and overall themes included prevention, integration of care via pooled budgets etc and improving the quality of the patient or service user experience. The Health and Wellbeing Board received an update on a different theme at each meeting.

A lot of work under the strategy was undertaken with NHS bodies such as the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT). Work was also undertaken with the Council’s Housing Services and with the third sector such as the ‘Help not Hospital’ project.

There had been a number of successes under the strategy such as the development of Community Treatment Teams which were multi-disciplinary teams supported by assistive technology such as telehealth which for example allowed a GP to monitor a patient’s oxygen levels remotely.

Another success had been the introduction of the Integrated Case Management Team which was also multi-disciplinary and dealt with people with the highest risk of hospital admission. A Joint Assessment and Discharge Team was also about to be launched in Queen’s Hospital that would apply across Barking & Dagenham and Redbridge as well as Havering.

There had been considerable success with dementia services but officers accepted that a lot more needed to be done.  Waiting times at memory clinics had reduced and work was ongoing with clinicians to ensure innovative treatments etc were employed for dementia. A Health and Wellbeing Board sub-group was taking forward work on dementia with providers and commissioners. A lot of work was also taking place on obesity which was an increasingly important issue both locally and nationally. More work was also being carried out to increase the early detection of cancer.

Officers confirmed that Havering had a low rate of delayed transfer of care but it was important not to compromise quality. Complaints about hospital discharge were considered by the Adult Safeguarding Board. The Group Director at the Council also met with the Director of Nursing at BHRUT to look at serious case alerts. It was accepted that some problems with discharge remained but the overall situation was improving. The CCG Chief Operating Officer also held quarterly meetings with BHRUT to discuss patient discharge issues. Liaison also took place with the PALS service, Healthwatch, GPs and Councillors.

The CCG was discussing with NHS England the reasons for late discharge of cancer locally and it was important that there were sufficient services available if awareness of the possible signs of early cancer was to be raised. A further proposal was to base MacMillan cancer nurses in some GP practices. Pancreatic cancer was suggested a an issue that would benefit from an awareness raising campaign although officers explained that te symptoms of this type of cancer were not clear cut. Diet, alcohol intake and smoking were all factors in pancreatic cancer.   

A reported case of a six month delay in a patient receiving cancer treatment should not have taken place as officers confirmed that there were specific atandards for treatment of this kind such as a two-week pathway.

Work on improving communication between GPs and the new Joint Assessment and Discharge Team was continuing and the Health and Wellbeing Board would shortly be asked to approve measures to produce a greater integration of IT systems between the Council and the NHS. The CCG would also continue to pursue improved IT integration with BHRUT. Data protection was an issue in IT work but the Government was addressing this. Further details of this specific case would be supplied to the CCG Chief Operating Officer in order that he could investigate further.  

Further details of work in all these areas were contained in the Health and Wellbeing Strategy which was available on the Council’s website. It was also planned to use existing staff (both Council and those of partner organisations) in news ways of working with an emphasis on being more locality-based. The overall on this work at the Council was the Leader of the Council - Councillor Steven Kelly.

The Committee NOTED the update.