Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber - Town Hall. View directions

Contact: Anthony Clements 

Items
No. Item

11.

CHAIRMAN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS

The Chairman will announce details of the arrangements in case of fire or other events that might require the meeting room or building’s evacuation.

Minutes:

The Chairman gave details of arrangements in case of fire or other events that may require the evacuation of the meeting room. The Chairman also explained that, whilst the meeting was being held in public, only Members and nominated Healthwatch co-optees would be able to ask questions. On this occasion any Members present from Councils outside the region covered by the Committee would also be allowed to ask questions. 

12.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND ANNOUNCEMENT OF SUBSTITUTE MEMBERS (if any) - receive.

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Councillors Syed Ahammad (Barking & Dagenham) Hugh Cleaver (Redbridge) Khevyn Limbajee (Waltham Forest and Sheree Rackham (Waltham Forest).

13.

DISCLOSURE OF PECUNIARY INTERESTS

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 point prior to the consideration of the matter.

Minutes:

There were no disclosures of interest.

14.

MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING pdf icon PDF 156 KB

To agree the minutes of the meeting held on 2 July 2013 (attached).

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting held on 2 July 2013 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

15.

CARE QUALITY COMMISSION INSPECTIONS OF LOCAL HOSPITALS

To receive a summary from Care Quality Commission compliance managers of recent inspections of Queen’s and Whipps Cross Hospitals.

 

Note: Officers from Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust and Barts Health NHS Trust will be in attendance to give a response.  

Minutes:

Care Quality Commission (CQC) compliance officers explained that the A&E at Queen’s Hospital had been inspected in May 2013 by a team consisting of A&E consultants and Experts by Experience who were trained members of the public. The main concerns identified had been over patient care and welfare and over staffing issues. Similar concerns had been raised in the CQC’s previous inspection in December 2012.

 

It was accepted that staff now gave more time and attention to people waiting in A&E. Nursing staff levels were acceptable but there were not enough permanent consultants in A&E and this had been the position for the last two years. Patient feedback about A&E staff was now more positive and a recent inspection of five elderly care wards at King George Hospital had found that staff there knew the patients and their needs.

 

A series of inspections had also recently been carried out across Barts Health looking at areas including A&E, outpatients and maternity. This had found that the Trust was not meeting ten of sixteen essential standards. Poor staff attitudes had been found in Whipps Cross maternity and warning notices had been issued over areas such as baby resuscitation units not being ready for use.

 

Inspectors had also found that elderly patients were not always getting pain relief and that handover of patients from ambulances at the Whipps Cross A&E and Urgent Care Centre was not good enough. A lack of equipment had been noted on elderly wards and warning notices issued concerning a lack of staff appraisals and supervision.

 

The Chairman noted that there was now a new maternity unit at Whipps Cross and this had recently been visited by members of the Committee.

 

Following the Francis Report, the CQC recognised that hospital inspections had to be more in-depth. As such, larger inspections teams were being formed that would be on site at a hospital for 5-7 days. Listening events would be held with the public and the CQC would publish performance ratings for hospitals from April 2014. Failing Trusts could be referred to the Trust Development Authority for the implementation of a failure regime. A new inspection of BHRUT was due to commence on 14 October with a listening event in Ilford scheduled for 15 October.

 

Response from Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (BHRUT)

 

The BHRUT officer was pleased that elderly care at King George had recently received a good assessment from the CQC. It was accepted that ther remained a lot of challenges in the Emergency Department and this was a long-standing issue. Current performance on the four-hour rule at Queen’s A&E was only 88%.

 

Overall attendance numbers at Queen’s A&E were about the same but cases received had got more serious. There had been an increase of 15% in the number of ambulances coming to A&E and a total of 32 ambulances had been received at Queen’s in a 2 hour period the previous Saturday.

 

There  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.

16.

CHANGES TO CANCER SERVICES

To receive an update from officers of the North East London Commissioning Support Unit on the proposed reorganisation of cancer services in North and East London.

Minutes:

The officer from the Commissioning Support Unit explained that a reconfiguration of cancer and cardiac services was being proposed across Central, North and East London as well as part of Essex. It would however only be specialist services that would be affected. The launch of the public engagement process had been delayed slightly so it was not possible to discuss the proposals in detail at this stage. The engagement process would run until the end of November at which point views would be sought from the Committee (as well as the equivalent bodies for Inner North East and North Central London) on whether the changes were considered to be substantial and hence whether formal consultation would be needed.

 

If formal consultation was required, a super-JOSC covering all effected boroughs and counties would need to be formed in order to give the final response. Work would be undertaken with the existing JOSCs initially but the final response would need to be submitted by the super-JOSC.

 

NHS England had taken the decision to combine consultation on the cancer and cardiac proposals. The views of the JOSC that had been previously expressed on the cardiac proposals had been noted.

 

The Committee NOTED the situation and AGREED to hold an additional meeting in order to be briefed on the proposals and to seek to reach a view on whether they constituted a substantial variation.

 

Note: The meeting has since been confirmed for Wednesday 20 November at 3.30 pm in Redbridge Town Hall, Ilford.

17.

STROKE REORGANISATION AT WHIPPS CROSS HOSPITAL

To receive a presentation from Barts Health officers on the reorganisation of stroke services at Whipps Cross Hospital.

Minutes:

Officers explained they were proud of the stroke services at Whipps Cross but that patients with stroke now generally spent less time in hospital and length of stay was predicted to continue to fall further. For this reason, the number of stroke beds at Whipps Cross had been reduced from 26 to 19 as there was no longer sufficient demand in the system.

 

It was accepted that this development could have been publicised better and more positively by the Trust. Approximately one third of stroke admissions now went home within 48 hours although the average length of stay was around 14 days.

 

Rehab services such as physiotherapy were better in some boroughs than others and officers felt that the provision of community services was vital. It was clarified that stroke patients had not lost the use of the gym at Whipps Cross although this was now considered less important for the recovery of stroke patients in any case.

 

The Committee NOTED the update.

18.

PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO COMMITTEE'S TERMS OF REFERENCE pdf icon PDF 105 KB

Report attached.

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report suggesting an amendment to clause 5 of its Terms of Reference in order to make it clearer that each constituent borough Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC) had the right to nominate Members the JOSC as it saw fit and that the requirement to reflect political balance could be waived by a borough OSC, provided this was agreed by the rest of the Committee.

 

The recommendation of the report was AGREED unanimously as follows:

 

That the Committee adopt the revised wording of clause 5 of its Terms of Reference as follows:

 

Appointments made to the JHOSC by each participating London borough OSC will reflect the political balance of the borough Council, unless a participating borough OSC agrees to waive the requirement and this is approved by the JHOSC.

 

In light of this, the Committee also APPROVED that the requirement for the Redbridge representatives on the Joint Committee to reflect political  balance be waived as agreed by the Redbridge Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 23 September 2013.

19.

URGENT BUSINESS

 

Text Box: 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.

Minutes:

There was no urgent business.