Agenda and minutes

At this point in the meeting, Members are asked to declare:

·        any personal interests not included on the Register of Interests

·        any prejudicial interests or

·        any disclosable pecuniary interests

which they may have in respect of business on this agenda.

At this point in the meeting, Members were invited to declare any personal, prejudicial or disclosable pecuniary interests, other than their standing interests attached to the agenda, that they might have in the business on the agenda.

Councillor Wiseman declared a personal interest in the remit of the Committee as a member of York NHS Foundation Trust.

Councillor Jeffries declared a personal interest in the remit of the Committee as the Chair of York Independent Living Network.

Councillor Hodgson declared a personal interest in the remit of the Committee as he worked for a partner of the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checking service.

No other interests were declared.

To approve and sign the minutes of the last meeting of the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on 26 June 2013.

Resolved:  That the minutes of the meeting of the Health Overview           and Scrutiny Committee held on Wednesday 26 June                 2013 be approved and signed by the Chair as a correct           record.

At this point in the meeting, members of the public who have registered their wish to speak regarding an item on the agenda or an issue within the Committee’s remit can do so. The deadline for registering is Tuesday 23 July 2013 at 5:00 pm.

It was reported that there had been one registration to speak under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.

Katie Smith from York Carers Forum spoke about a review of the Liverpool Care Pathway. She informed the Committee that the review would look at end of life care for ethnic minority groups and also concerns that relatives had not been asked whether they wished for the dying patient to be put on this method of care.

The Cabinet Member for Health, Housing and Adult Social Services will be in attendance at the meeting to present an annual report.

The Cabinet Member for Health, Housing & Adult Social Services, attended the meeting and presented her annual report to the Committee.

She gave the following specific updates not included in the published report;

·        The current state of the 111 non emergency number service.

·        Expected pressures on Accident and Emergency Services over Winter.

·        The use of other budgets, such as the new Homes Budget, which had been used to fund Adult Social Care but which would now have to fund Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs).

Following questions from Members, the Cabinet Member responded that;

·        The Telecare Living Flat had been launched, and had attracted visitors but needed greater advertisement. It was confirmed at the meeting that York Older People’s Assembly (YOPA) would contain information about the Flat in their next newsletter.

·        That a proposed debate on the overspend in Parliament had not been successful, but that questions were raised and a meeting had been arranged between the two York MPs and the Minister for Health, Dan Powter, which Doctor Paul Edmondson Jones, the Director for Health and Wellbeing would also attend. Also, that a further follow up letter had been written to the Secretary of State requesting that the Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group’s (VOYCCG) inherited debt be written off.

·        That a business case had been agreed between Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and the VOYCCG to provide a place of safety at Bootham Park hospital, although this was still subject to timelines set down by NHS Property Co.

·        In the meantime, the Place of Safety would remain a police station.

The Chair thanked the Cabinet Member for her attendance. The Cabinet Member offered to respond to any further queries and concerns raised on the report outside the meeting by email.

Resolved:  That the report be noted.

Reason:     To keep the Committee up to date with the Cabinet                             Member’s annual priorities in her portfolio.

This report analyses the outturn performance for 2012/13 and the financial outturn position by reference to the service plan and budgets for all of the relevant services falling under the responsibility of the Director of Health & Wellbeing.

Members received a report which analysed the outturn performance for 2012/13 and the financial outturn position by reference to the service plan and budgets for all of the relevant services falling under the responsibility of the Director of Public Health and Wellbeing.

Questions from Members related to;

·        If the increase in referrals from the hospital for discharge support over the last two years was part of a national trend?

·        Timeliness of social care assessments.

It was noted that there was a national trend for faster discharges from hospitals, which was something that the CCG wanted to encourage. The hospital was also aware of the pressures that this brought.

In relation to timeliness of social care assessments, Members were told that Officers were aware of the length of waiting lists but that development was taking place to not duplicate figures from older indicators.

Resolved:  That the report be noted.

Reason:     To update the Committee on the final finance and                     performance position for 2012/13.

This is the second annual report to Health Overview and Scrutiny. The report outlines the arrangements in place to ensure that City of York Council is able to discharge its responsibilities to keep vulnerable adults within the City protected from violence and abuse, whilst maintaining their independence and well-being. 

Members received a report which outlined the arrangements in place to ensure that the Council is able to discharge its responsibility to keep vulnerable adults in York protected from violence and abuse, whilst maintaining their independence and wellbeing.

Officers informed the Committee that they were confident that measures were in place to show that the Council was taking safeguarding seriously. During previous years, the Council had not investigated all safeguarding alerts, this had been done by the Council’s partners. However checking, monitoring and follow up action was now carried out by Council Officers. An increase in the number of alerts relating to ‘institutional’ abuse was highlighted by Members but was suggested that this did not necessarily reflect an increase in instances of abuse, but rather demonstrated an increase in the awareness of the referral process. The Manager of York Health Watch confirmed that more training in Adult Safeguarding had taken place across the Council and its partners, to raise awareness and this could have led to an increase in the number of referrals.

In relation to the improvements planned for ensuring all statutory agencies were involved with the multi agency partnership, the Chair requested that the wording be amended slightly to positively achieve representation from Health Watch.

Resolved:  That the report be and continuing progress be noted,               including the positive steps taken to raise awareness of              adult safeguarding responsibilities and referral                            processes.

Reason:     To ensure that the Health Overview and Scrutiny                      Committee are assured of the arrangements for Adult               Safeguarding within the Council.

This report provides Members with a summary of the current performance of providers against Care Quality Commission Standards and the Council’s own standards for performance and quality.

Members received a six monthly update report on the summary of the current performance of providers of Residential/Nursing Care and Home Care in York, against Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the Council’s own standards for performance and quality.

Members were advised that the inspection process for acute services had recently been reconfigured which could have a potential knock on effect on other services. It was suggested that the Committee might wish to keep a watching brief on the impact of this reconfiguration, as part of its overview role.

Resolved:  That the update report be noted.

Reason:     So that Members are informed about the performance             and standards of provision of Care Services in York.

Members will receive a verbal briefing from Councillor Wiseman regarding a new scrutiny topic on Men’s Health.

The Committee received a verbal update from Councillor Wiseman on her proposal for a review of Men’s Health, together with a contextual background paper from the Director of Public Health & Wellbeing, setting out the key issues, which was tabled at the meeting.

The briefing paper highlighted that there was a bottom 20% of men in the local population who had been “cast adrift” and had a significantly different and poorer life expectancy. The Director of Public Health and Wellbeing informed the Committee that this was unique to York in comparison to other areas nationally, and could be due to a culture change of moving from heavy industry (i.e. industrial activities around the railways) to current jobs. In the light of these statistics, Councillor Wiseman had registered her interest in reviewing what could specifically be done to help these men, alleviate their health concerns and specifically improve their life expectancy.

The Committee felt that the topic would be worthy of a review and agreed to form a Task Group to conduct the review.

Discussion took place on the potential remit and on the whole it was felt that the review should focus specifically on the 20% “cast adrift” initially. On the basis, that at a later stage, the information and evidence gathered could be used to broaden the review and any arising recommendations to improve the access of men, more generally, to health and public services.

Resolved:  (i)      That the verbal briefing and paper on the scrutiny                     topic on Men’s Health be noted

                   (ii)      Members agree that a Task Group be formed to                        carry out the agreed review, comprising of                              Councillors Wiseman, Hodgson and Doughty.

                   (iii)     That the wording of the remit, including key                                 objectives,  for the review be         delegated to                                    Officers to determine, in conjunction with                                    Councillor Wiseman.

Reason:              To progress this scrutiny review.

Members will receive a verbal update on the progress of the Personalisation Scrutiny Review following the meeting of the review’s Task Group on Friday 19 July 2013.

The Chair gave the Committee a verbal update on the progress of the Personalisation Scrutiny Review Task Group.

She reported that the Task Group had felt that the previous criteria for the review had remained valid, but that there needed to be a greater pooling of data. It was suggested that through the process of reviewing evidence, gaps would be found, on which the Task Group would focus on.

The Task Group had also discovered that the language used to explain personalisation was a potential barrier to understanding and that it could be beneficial to share personal stories about how lives had been changed as a result of a resident being offered a Personal Budget.

Finally, it was noted that the next meeting of the Task Group was being arranged for September 2013.

Resolved:  That the verbal update be noted.

Reason:     So that the Committee is informed of the work of the                 Task Group.

Members are asked to consider the Committee’s work plan for the municipal year.

Members considered the Committee’s Work Plan. The Chair outlined her proposals to review the format of the work plan to ‘theme’ the work of the Committee wherever possible, to make it easier for key partners and interested parties to engage on interrelated topics, e.g. one meeting could specifically focus on ‘partnership working’, another on ‘mental health issues’. She also advised that she had asked Officers to look at removing unnecessary monitoring reports from the workplan on areas that were otherwise being addressed now by the Health & Wellbeing Board and its sub-groups.

A revised version of the current workplan would be circulated as soon as possible to all concerned.

Discussion then took place regarding an approach agreed by the Corporate and Scrutiny Management Committee (CSMC) for all the Council’s Scrutiny Committees to conduct a review topic based on an overarching theme- the Night time Economy in York.

A briefing note, produced for CSMC and outlining potential remits for each Scrutiny Committee upon this ‘theme’ was circulated at the meeting.

CSMC had suggested that this Committee might wish, as a starting point, to focus on “looking at the causes for peak times at Accident and Emergency (12 am- 2am), to investigate the causes for this and to work with A & E to address these causes”.

In general, the Committee felt that the focus of their review should be about ‘identifying issues within the health environment, including the impact on A&E, and what steps could be taken address the health issues’. To help the Committee focus its work on this review, Members wished to receive the briefing report considered originally by CSMC, at their next meeting in September.

It was noted that CSMC had set a timescale for all Committees to report back to them on their work on this review by the end of February 2014.

Resolved:           That the revised work plan, to be circulated, be                          agreed, subject to the inclusion of work on the                      agreed men’s health and night time economy                                reviews.

Reason:              To ensure that the Committee has a planned                                       programme of work in place.