Agenda item

UPDATES

Committee Members are invited to indicate to the Chairman, items within this Committee’s terms of reference they would like to see discussed at a future meeting.  Note: it is not considered appropriate for issues relating to individuals to be discussed under this provision.

 

Minutes:

The Chairman requested that members of the sub-committee forward any subject area for inclusion on the work programme.

 

The Sub-Committee received a briefing on the work carried out by Adult Social Care Services around Covid 19.

 

Members were informed that in order to make hospital acute beds available, a new hospital discharge policy was introduced which meant that the clinical commissioning group were made responsible for arranging the discharge and funding of all new care package placement for those leaving hospital.

 

This resulted in a lot of elderly persons going in to care home settings. At the end of August, NHS England decided that the initial Covid 19 was now over. It was stated that Adult Social would now be undertaking individual review.  

 

It was stated that at the beginning of September, NHS introduced a new hospital discharge arrangement that the first 6 weeks of hospital discharge would be funded by the NHS to enable a discharge be effected and for ongoing assessment to take place as it was felt no person should stay in an acute bed unnecessarily.

 

In response to a Member enquiry, the Director for Adults Services assured the sub-committee that there was no risk of any vulnerable person being stepped down from not receiving a care home setting.

 

The Public Health Consultant also briefed the sub-committee on the Adult Social Services activities with care homes throughout the emergency period. It was stated that from the very early start of Covid 19 the Director of Public Health was organising meetings to understand what needed to be planned for and what to expect.

 

Adult Social Services at the early stage started to procure personal protection equipment (PPE) from the wider market where it was available.

 

The sub-committee was informed that the service started to give support to care homes in terms of advice as the National Organisation for Infection Control was beginning to get overwhelmed responding to care homes. The service was able to give guidance on how to admit new patients to care homes.

 

The sub-committee was informed that the service and public health were able to provide training on infection control to care homes.

 

The Public Health Consultant outlined to the sub-committee noted that the service was  able to model what was thought to be needed within Havering care homes on a week on week basis and procure such requirements. The Public Health Consultant also supported the creation of an Infection Control Team which covered the BHR area providing generally telephone advice and visiting care homes.

 

It was noted that during the first month of the pandemic, the service kept an open door communication with providers.

 

A Provider Emergency Command Centre that worked 7 days a week was put in place to respond to any emergency situation.

 

It was mentioned that Adult Social Care supported the shielded patient list response programme through outbound calls to vulnerable person in the community. The shielded patient list contained about ten thousand names in addition to the seven thousand list that adult social care already have on its records.

 

The briefing informed the sub-committee that Adult Social Services was already considering plans for how to respond in the future in general terms to future outbreaks such as Covid.

 

The Director for Adult Services also mentioned plans for the future to provide the sub-committee with information and data on lessons learnt. This would provide Members an opportunity to speak with Care Providers and family members of patients.

 

A Member mentioned that the Carers Trust were capturing data on what went well and  could be done in preparation for a second wave. It was stated that such information could be shared with the service as part of lesson learnt process.

 

The following other areas would be considered:

·         Day Centres - the impact of its closure on users and families

·         Hospital discharge – the new policy

·         Impact on how the service had to respond to care home resident with learning difficulties or dementia and their families

 

The Sub-Committee noted the briefing.