Agenda item

Councillor Steven Kelly, Cabinet Member for Individuals, introduced the report

This report before Cabinet considered the current partnership working with North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT) providing integrated health and social care services for people with mental health needs in Havering.

The report identified the opportunity for further co-operation with NELFT and recommended that the Council enter into an Overarching Section 75 Partnership Agreement with the Trust encompassing mental health and other community-based health and social care functions for a period of 3 years from 1 April 2013.

The Cabinet Member recognised that the Council’s relevant Overview & Scrutiny Committees were the appropriate place for the performance of the contract to be monitored.

Reasons for the decision:

The Council and North East London Foundation Trust were partners in a successful Section 75 Agreement for the provision of an integrated community mental health service in Havering.  The Council had seconded its mental health social care staff to the Trust.  Following a review of the agreement both partners considered that the mental health partnership should continue and that as there may be a range of other health and social care services which would benefit from such a partnership approach there should be an Overarching Agreement that gives the partners flexibility to agree that other services can be incorporated at a future date.

Other options considered:

The Council considered these other options:

·           Ending the current Section 75 Mental Health Agreement and secondment arrangements and delivering mental health social care services in-house.  This option would not provide the required integrated health and social care services.

·         Ending the current Section 75 Mental Health Agreement with North East London Foundation Trust and negotiating a new Agreement with another specialist mental health organisation. This option would entail considerable expenditure in procuring an alternative provider; the market in specialist mental health provision is not well developed and as the PCT and CCG who are the commissioners of the health mental health services are not intending to open the service to competition the Council would be unable to proceed on a unilateral basis. 

·         Renewing and revising the current Section 75 Mental Health Agreement with North East London Foundation Trust and developing separate Section 75 Agreements for each new service partnership. In view of the common intention of both parties to develop more partnership working across a wider range of health and social care services it would be more complicated and expensive in terms of developmental costs to produce a range of Agreements.

A suggestion was made that there be an annual debate in the Council on the issue of public health. The Cabinet Member for Individuals supported the suggestion and commented that the Annual Public Health Report was a matter which should be debated in public.

Cabinet authorised the Group Director, Social Care & Learning to conclude negotiations with North East London Foundation Trust to enter into an Overarching Agreement under Section 75 of the National Health Service Act 2006 with effect from 1 April 2013.