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 pecuniary interests, other than their standing interests, that they might have had in the business on the agenda.

Councillor Wiseman declared a personal interest in the general remit of the Committee as a member of the York Health and Wellbeing Board.

Although he was not required to declare an interest, Doctor Paul Edmondson-Jones declared an interest as a Members of the Advisory Committee for Resource Allocation (ACRA) who had recommended that a ‘needs based’ formula be used when funding NHS services.

No other interests were declared.

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 Thursday 25 April 2013 at 5:00 pm.

It was reported that there had been no registrations to speak at the meeting under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.

Hugh Bayley, the Member of Parliament for York Central and Julian Sturdy, the Member of Parliament for York Outer will be in attendance to discuss with the Committee issues related to the Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group’s inherited debt from NHS North Yorkshire and York.

Hugh Bayley MP for York Central and Julian Sturdy MP for York Outer attended the meeting to share their thoughts on what could be done in regards to the Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group’s inherited debt from NHS North Yorkshire and York.

Discussion took place around how the inherited debt occurred. Some Members concluded that it was due to bureaucratic problems in the wider NHS, market advice that had been given to NHS North Yorkshire and York on how to manage their budget and due to funding allocation.

Some Members disagreed that the inherited debt was due to bureaucracy. Overcoming debt was difficult in the context of a large scale reorganisation of the NHS, and all MPs needed to be more explicit in campaigning for clearing the inherited debt.

Julian Sturdy agreed that there had been systemic problems and spoke about how the Primary Care Trust (PCT) had been in deficit for several years and how the Strategic Health Authority (SHA) had always paid their outstanding debts.

In relation to the funding formula he felt that York received the lowest share of funding per person in the North. In his opinion if North Yorkshire and York had received the average funding that other Yorkshire PCTs received then they would not be in deficit. He felt that the age of the population of North Yorkshire and York, with its high percentage of those over 85, had not been considered when allocating funding. Health care costs for North Yorkshire and York were higher than other areas, due to its elderly population. He felt that how the funding formula was delivered needed to be re-examined.

Further discussion took place on the funding formula. Hugh Bayley questioned if the split in the debts accrued by the PCT was divided fairly amongst the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). He commented that funding had been determined using the current financial status of NHS North Yorkshire and York. He felt that the allocation of funding had been skewed towards areas with higher levels of deprivation that North Yorkshire and York. As a result of this North Yorkshire and York’s budget had been in deficit whilst other PCTs had a surplus, because York did not have as high a level of deprivation when compared to other areas. He urged caution that if the funding formula was changed during the current financial climate that North Yorkshire and York would not get an increase in their funding automatically.

Doctor Mark Hayes, Chief Operating Officer from the Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (VOYCCG) welcomed recognition from both MPs that services in North Yorkshire and York had been been detrimentally affected by the formula. As a result of this work was ongoing to reconfigure the VOYCCG’s budgets. He added that decisions needed to be made in conjunction with the public who used the services, particularly given the emphasis on service and safety from the Francis Report. Smaller budgets could affect the safety of services because they would have to cover broader  ...  view the full minutes text for item 94.