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

1.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 261 KB

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting held on 3 March 2022.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Minutes of the Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on the 3 March were approved as a correct record.

2.

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 and no discussion on briefing notes took place.

3.

Declarations of Interests

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Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

4.

Healthwatch

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Minutes:

Due to Kim James sending her apologies, the Chair moved onto the next item.

5.

Integrated Medical Centres Update (PowerPoint Presentation) pdf icon PDF 2 MB

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Minutes:

Tiffany Hemming presented a PowerPoint on the update of the Integrated Medical Centres (IMCs). This PowerPoint can be found from the following link:

 

(Public Pack)Item 6 - Integrated Medical Centre Update Presentation Agenda Supplement for Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee, 07/06/2022 19:00 (thurrock.gov.uk)

 

Councillor Piccolo thanked Tiffany Hemming for the update and referred to the extended deadline of the Tilbury IMC and questioned whether those additional costs for the redesign work would be looked at from another source. Tiffany Hemming stated that the savings for the redesign had come back, and they had saved relatively little and that work was now underway to ensure the design actually worked as it currently did not. Work would be undertaken to determine how much space was in the building which in turn would predict the overall costs for the building. A decision would be made once the district valuation costs had been determined and whether this cost would be affordable to the NHS. Councillor Piccolo continued to question what the fall-back position would be if this was not affordable and the additional funding was not available from NHS England. Tiffany Hemming confirmed that currently there was not a fall-back position but work continued by sending strong linkages to the towns regeneration scheme which highlighted significant additional benefits that might help to persuade NHS England to allow for the work to move forward.

 

Councillor Piccolo referred to the services moving out of Orsett Hospital into the Corringham IMC and questioned how many of those services would be available from day one to which Tiffany Hemming stated there would be a soft launch, moving services over a few weeks and expected to have everything operating out of the Corringham IMC in the space of about six weeks.

 

Councillor Fish questioned what the parking arrangements at the Corringham Health Centre second site would be, as he had experienced problems parking and felt the parking arrangements were dangerous. Tiffany Hemming stated at this time no car parking plans had been made for that site and as the strategy was developed for that site this would include a travel plan which would include parking.

 

Councillor Polley referred to fellowship general practitioners and the extended appointment times and questioned whether 111 would have access to these out of hours appointments or would these only be available through resident’s general practitioner. Councillor Polley raised her concerns on the lack of primary care appointments and to the lack of progress being made to the Purfleet, Grays and Tilbury IMCs and asked for reassurance that Orsett Hospital would not close until all four IMCs were up and running and all services were available to residents. Tiffany Hemming stated that extended appointments and general practitioner appointments would be open to 111 to book and for residents to book via their general practitioner as the systems were electronically linked. It had been recognised that Thurrock was under doctored and was being prioritised for the general practitioner fellowship scheme, to recruit 12 newly  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.

Integrated Community Equipment Service Reprocurement pdf icon PDF 235 KB

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Minutes:

Catherine Wilson presented the report that outlined the duty under the Care Act 2014 and the Children and Families Act 2014 to supply Community Equipment for those with eligible need. The report detailed the current arrangements and the options that had been explored for future procurement.

 

Councillor Piccolo thanked Catherine Wilson for the report and questioned whether the department had actively looked for more cost-effective options rather than extending the current arrangements to which Catherine Wilson stated the market was extraordinary limited with only a few providers able to provide contracts of this size and over the next three years would look into how this could be undertaken in a different way. Councillor Snell agreed that there was a very limited number of suppliers and not much choice but what was important was the stability of supply.

 

Councillor Pothecary questioned why there had not been a consultation with users to establish whether service users were happy with the service they received and how the service was currently performing and felt this was relevant to the report. Ian Kennard stated the service performance was performing very well and had been consistent during Covid. The contract had financial pressures and were looking to make savings on the contract but to also improve service delivery. In terms of resident’s satisfaction, in relation to KPI indicators and complaints the performance was very good.

 

Councillor Polley praised the work undertaken by the discharge planning team and had the privilege of visiting the team as part of the National Social Workers Week. Councillor Polley welcomed the report and referred to the equipment that was no longer needed by service users and how the collection of these items could be improved.

 

Councillor Fish fed back to the committee as a service user and questioned why there were delays on more bespoke items of equipment.

 

RESOLVED:

 

1.       Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee reviewed and commented on the content of the report.

 

2.       Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee supported a proposed recommendation to Cabinet that the procurement of Community Equipment should move forward under the current Collaborative arrangements.

 

Catherine Wilson and Ian Kennard left the meeting at 8.03pm.

7.

Adult's Integrated Care Strategy pdf icon PDF 492 KB

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Minutes:

Ceri Armstrong introduced the “Better Care Together Thurrock - The Case for Further Change – Thurrock’s new adults’ Integrated Care Strategy” to members. The Better Care Together Thurrock - The Case for Further Change had set out the ambitious and detailed plans for transforming Thurrock’s health, care, housing and wellbeing services and provided a blue-print for service integration to form one place-based and integrated care system, designed to deliver better outcomes for individuals that would take place close to home and make the best use of health and care resources.

 

The following PowerPoint was presented to Members:

 

(Public Pack)Item 8 - The Case for Future Change Presentation Agenda Supplement for Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee, 07/06/2022 19:00 (thurrock.gov.uk)

 

Councillor Piccolo thanked Ceri Armstrong and Les Billingham and welcomed the report which had thoroughly proven that we understood what worked well.

 

Councillor Piccolo questioned whether the changes would jeopardise the effectiveness of the services and how this would affect the number of staff to which Ceri Armstrong stated there would not be any difference in the number of staff just that they would be working in a very different way. Moving services to a position where they would work together could reduce the number of times people would have to be assessed. There would be additional resources in terms of numbers as capacity would be freed up by reducing some of the work that would get in the way of the right action being taken. There would be the opportunity to learn from one another, have a more diverse knowledge of what was going on rather than being specialised in one particular area.

 

Councillor Fish stated the report had emphasised on the word “learning” a lot and had concerns on how that learning might take place. Ceri Armstrong stated that learning was used in a sense on how to empower staff to think about doing things differently and for members of staff who worked across different thresholds and functions to get together to look at cases differently. Les Billingham commented that the council were currently looking at using a technique called Human Learning Systems to help with this. The word learning had been mentioned a lot in the report deliberately as the aim was for a learning culture but in terms of how this would be done would definitely not be designed to be bureaucratic.

 

Councillor Polley referred to the primary care population lead area and questioned what the data was based on, how up to date this data was and how would this be updated with the expansion of growth in the borough. Councillor Polley stated this would be amazing when delivered but relied on all those partnerships involved working together and some learnings had to come out of that.

 

Councillor Pothecary thanked officers for the detailed, well researched and ambitious report and asked for clarification on Thurrock Integrated Care Alliance (TICA) and the accountability structures that ran alongside that. Ceri Armstrong stated this was the integrated health  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

8.

Thurrock Health and Wellbeing Strategy Refresh 2022-26 pdf icon PDF 308 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Jo Broadbent acknowledged and thanked all those that had been involved in the process which had been a real team effort to develop the strategy. Members were briefly referred to the executive summary of the report which

informed them there was a statutory duty to produce this strategy which was a whole system plan for health and wellbeing and a means to engage all partners in the wellbeing agenda, co-ordinating strategic thinking of all elements of the council and all system partners to deliver quantifiable gains in health and wellbeing of residents. Members were also referred to the goals and actions across the six broad domains that were set out in the strategy and that a comprehensive engagement process had taken place throughout the autumn with over 1300 different comments received from various stakeholders. Members were referred to the appendix to the report that referred to the Thurrock’s Vision for Health and Wellbeing – Levelling the Playing Field, Wider Determinants of Health, Strategic Fit, People Place and Prosperity and the six domains of Health and Wellbeing in Thurrock were comprehensively detailed.

 

Councillor Piccolo thanked Jo Broadbent and all those involved for the very well-presented report.

 

Councillor Pothecary referred to the issues of air quality in the borough and the link to people’s health and questioned why the goal had not highlighted the need to take an approach to improve air quality across Thurrock and not where there might be new regeneration or new redevelopments. Jo Broadbent stated this had been referred to in domain 5 but not referenced in detail as they did not want to pre-empt work that was going on in the strategy that had not yet been developed. Members were informed that following the consultation period a link was made with the climate change strategy which highlighted the work that was going on in the council and in the borough. Some work was being undertaken to underpin developing a new air quality strategy and that new air quality monitoring officer had now been recruited.

 

Councillor Fish referred to access to services, in particular primary care services and had noticed the section of the report that referenced improvements made to telephony which would be very helpful. Councillor Fish stated that a lot of the primary care surgeries could not be accessed independently by wheelchair users and these were the type of issues that needed to be addressed.

 

RESOLVED:

 

The Health and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee reviewed and commented on the final draft Strategy at Appendix 1 and considered the proposed domains and goals.

 

Jo Broadbent left the meeting at 9.06pm.

 

9.

Work Programme pdf icon PDF 122 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Members discussed the work programme and had concerns that there were too many reports for the next two committees. Democratic Services would work with officers to address this.

 

Councillor Pothecary requested a report on Health and Air Quality to be linked with the Air Quality Strategy and suggested this be added to the January 2023 committee.

 

Councillor Pothecary also requested a briefing note on the Underdoctored position in Thurrock.