Council and democracy

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Room 2, Civic Offices, New Road, Grays, Essex, RM17 6SL.

Contact: Jenny Shade, Senior Democratic Services Officer  Email: Direct.Democracy@thurrock.gov.uk

Media

Items
No. Item

10.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 396 KB

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting held on 7 June 2022.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Minutes of the Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on the 7 June 2022 were approved as a correct record.

11.

Urgent Items

To receive additional items that the Chair is of the opinion should be considered as a matter of urgency, in accordance with Section 100B (4) (b) of the Local Government Act 1972. To agree any relevant briefing notes submitted to the Committee.

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Minutes:

No urgent items were received.

12.

Declarations of Interests

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Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

13.

HealthWatch

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Due to the presenter being unable to attend the meeting, the Chair moved on to the next item.

 

14.

Grays Integrated Medical and Wellbeing Centre (IMWC) Engagement Update - (PowerPoint) pdf icon PDF 3 MB

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Minutes:

Tina Starling provided members with a Power Point presentation. This PowerPoint presentation can be found on the following link:

 

(Public Pack)IMWC Engagement Update Presentation Agenda Supplement for Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee, 01/09/2022 19:00 (thurrock.gov.uk)

 

The Chair expressed concern about the level of primary care going into the IMWC’s and commented that this seemed to differ from what they had been told previously.

 

Stephen Porter responded that following the pattern the Council set out in Partnership with other organisations of looking at a range of services and integrated hubs of social care, health and other professionals, third sector, voluntary and community, the very baseline would be to have a GP presence there. He further explained it will ultimately depend on which model is chosen. If they go with option 3 everyone wont be on the same site. He clarified that this in itself wont bring in new GP’s but there is another programme that is going to bring in 12 new GP’s into the area. He confirmed that they also have plans to change how GP’s work as primary care networks in a more collaborative way, there are services such as local area coordination and social prescribing to take pressure off GP’s. It has been proven elsewhere that co-location is really effective in terms of networking so people don’t have to tell their story several times over and to get a more joined up response rather than having to go through 15 different doors they go through just one. Residents will have at least what they have now in terms of primary care but third sector voluntary professionals as well.

 

The Chair asked the Corporate Director of Adults, Housing and Health for his view. The Corporate Director of Adults, Housing and Health confirmed that they need to be careful about the numbers as it does not appear to be a representative sample and it would be dangerous to conclude a preferred option by counting the numbers. He clarified that the original model was primary care as part of an IMC and that moved to a primary care network where a lot more services will be provided to residents in the network. The Corporate Director of Adults, Housing and Health confirmed that he would prefer to have primary care on site.

 

Councillor Pothecary queried if option 4 is realistic in terms of fitting in all of the services that have been promised will be transferred from Orsett to Lodge Lane along with building a new GP site as well. Councillor Pothecary also commented that it is very clear from the consultation that what people care about is capacity and she questioned what is being done about that.

 

Stephen Porter responded that with regard to Orsett they needed to improve access to all its services as it is an old building that needs refurbishing and it is not fit for purpose in terms of modern expectations of services in the NHS. The services that come out of there need to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.

15.

Community In-Patient Beds pdf icon PDF 115 KB

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Minutes:

This item has been postponed to the next meeting on 3 November 2022 as the presenters did not attend the meeting.

 

16.

2021/22 Annual Complaints and Representations Report - Adult Social Care pdf icon PDF 89 KB

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Minutes:

The Strategic Lead for Information Management presented the report.

 

The Chair commented that he was surprised following Covid that there hasn’t been more complaints.

 

Councillor Fish queried that some of the learning seemed more like an outcome than learning and perhaps should be labelled as such.

 

The Strategic Lead for Information Management responded that it was a valid point and this could be adjusted going forward.

 

Councillor Polley queried how external providers complaint systems worked and if they used the same audit system as the Council.

 

The Strategic Lead for Information Management clarified that each quarter members of his team contact every provider and they capture the complaints data for this report provided to the Committee. Feedback is then provided to the contracts and commissioning team who check that learning from complaints is embedded as part of their compliance visits.

 

Councillor Polley noted that a complaint about missed medication had been put under the category ‘quality of care’ she queried whether it would be more appropriate for this to be put in the category ‘potential safety issue’. Councillor Polley acknowledged the type of medication isn’t confirmed in the report and therefore there isn’t enough information to determine the seriousness of the missed medication.

 

The Strategic Lead for Information Management confirmed his view was that this complaint could be placed in either of these categories.

 

Councillor Polley also noted the majority of complaints are from relatives rather than the actual service users.

 

Councillor Pothecary queried the complaints that had gone to the Local Government Ombudsman. She asked for confirmation of what the complaints process is.

 

The Strategic Lead for Information Management confirmed that for adults there is just a stage 1 complaints process internally and then complaints go on to the Ombudsman. One of the two complaints that went to the Local Government Ombudsman however went straight to the Ombudsman and it is at the discretion of the Ombudsman to take the complaint on straight away but 99% of the time the Ombudsman will ask if the complaint has gone through Thurrock’s own complaint process first.

 

Councillor Pothecary queried the complaint about the Safeguarding referral not been completed and asked at what point was this remedied.

 

The Strategic Lead for Information Management clarified that safeguarding concerns are looked at outside of the complaints process and an internal investigation followed to look into this.

Councillor Snell highlighted that nobody had mentioned the compliments. Councillor Snell stated that the complaints do not appear to be systemic but more about individuals making mistakes and it would be helpful to know how many interactions have taken place during this period to provide a better idea of the numbers as they seem very low.

 

The Corporate Director for Adults, Housing and Health clarified that they care for more than 10,000 individuals who have 2 or 3 interventions a day so it could be as many as 10 million interactions. He commented that humans make mistakes and they need to know about them to learn from them.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.

17.

Contract for Occupational Therapy and Independent Mobility Assessment Service pdf icon PDF 100 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Commissioning Manager for Adults, Housing and Health presented the report.

 

Councillor Pothecary asked if they have looked properly at an in-house option. She also commented that they should be talking to the people who use these services and organisations who work with people who use these services. She highlighted that she was struggling to support the recommendation at this time in the absence of this information.

 

The Commissioning Manager for Adults, Housing and Health responded that outsourcing the assessment process has saved money for the Local Authority.

 

The Corporate Director for Adults, Housing and Health stated that if money was no object, he would have the service in-house as they would have maximum control but they only have the budget that they have.

 

Councillor Fish agreed with Councillor Pothecary that he cannot agree the recommendation unless there is more feedback on an in-house option.

 

Councillor Polley commented that the thought of delaying this report and resident’s assessments would give her more concern and she therefore supported the recommendation.

 

Following the vote 4 members voted in favour and 2 members voted against the recommendation.

 

RESOLVED:

 

That Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee supports the recommendation to go to market to reprocure the contract to provide an Occupational Therapy and Independent Mobility Assessments service. 

 

18.

Contract to Supply, Install, Maintain & Repair Telecare Equipment pdf icon PDF 90 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Commissioning Manager for Adults, Housing and Health presented the report.

 

The Commissioning Manager for Adults, Housing and Health clarified that they don’t go to manufacturers directly but to an intermediary who scans the market for them and this intermediary also then has the technological skills to install and train.

 

Councillor Pothecary queried with the longer contract whether there will be a break clause in place and whether there will be a user panel.

 

The Commissioning Manager for Adults, Housing and Health confirmed there will be a break clause and it is their intention to bring service users on board and to put them in front of bidders to ask them questions directly as they find this usually helps to find out the bidder who has the most knowledge.

 

Councillor Pothecary thanked the Commissioning Manager for Adults, Housing and Health for the report.

 

RESOLVED:

 

That Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee supports the recommendation to go to market to reprocure the contract to supply, install, maintain and repair telecare equipment

 

19.

Work Programme pdf icon PDF 76 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Item 7 regarding Community in-patient beds will be added to the next meeting on 3 November 2022.