Agenda and minutes

To note the attendance at this meeting of any duly appointed Reserve Members.

Reserve Members may attend meetings:-

(i)                 to take the place of an ordinary Member for whom they are a reserve;

(ii)               where the ordinary Member will be absent for the whole of the meeting; and

(iii)             the meeting notes at the start of the meeting at the item ‘Reserves’ that the Reserve Member is or will be attending as a reserve;

(iv)              if a Reserve Member whose intention to attend has been noted arrives after the commencement of the meeting, then that Reserve Member can only act as a Member from the start of the next item of business on the agenda after his/her arrival.

RESOLVED:  To note the attendance at this meeting of the following duly appointed Reserve Members:-

To receive declarations of disclosable pecuniary or non pecuniary interests, arising from business to be transacted at this meeting, from:

(a)               all Members of the Sub-Committee;

(b)               all other Members present.

RESOLVED:  To note that the following interests were declared:

Agenda Item 8 - Care Quality Commission Chief Inspector of Hospitals Inspection Compliance Action Plan for the NWLHT

Councillor Chris Mote declared a non-pecuniary interest in that his daughter was employed at Northwick Park Hospital.  He would remain in the room whilst the matter was considered and voted upon.

That the minutes of the meeting held on 4 September 2014 be taken as read and signed as a correct record.

RESOLVED:  That the minutes of the meeting held on 4 September 2014 be taken as read and signed as a correct record, subject to the following amendment:

Paragraph 2, on page 11 to read:  ‘A representative from Harrow’s Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) added that the Improvement Plan was owned by Brent and Harrow CCGs, which had joint monitoring responsibility.’

To receive any public questions received in accordance with Committee Procedure Rule 17 (Part 4B of the Constitution).

Questions will be asked in the order notice of them was received and there be a time limit of 15 minutes.

[The deadline for receipt of public questions is 3.00 pm, 15 October 2014.  Questions should be sent to publicquestions@harrow.gov.uk  

No person may submit more than one question].

RESOLVED:  To note that no public questions, petitions or references were received at this meeting.

Report of the Director of Legal and Governance Services.

The Sub Committee received a report of the Director of Legal and Governance Services, which set out the nomination from HealthWatch Harrow for the position of non-voting adviser to the Sub Committee.

RESOLVED:  That Julian Maw of HealthWatch Harrow, be appointed as a non-voting adviser to the Sub Committee for the 2014/15 Municipal Year.

Report of the Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Care Quality Commission

The Sub Committee received a report of the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) Chief Inspector of Hospitals Inspection Compliance Action Plan. 

The Deputy CEO and Chief Operating Officer of the London North West Healthcare NHS Trust provided a brief overview of the report and responded to the following questions from Members:

·                     Can you update on the progress made against the actions scheduled for completion in September and October 2014 that are not shown as completed?

·                     In relation to up-to-date protocols has a process been instituted to flag when these will need to be updated in the future?

·                     It looks as if the Compliance Action Plan seeks to develop a Women’s Feedback Plan on the Maternity Pathway at the same time as updating the Women’s Experience Improvement Action Plan.  These two Plans could easily by mistaken as addressing the same thing.  Could you please distinguish the purpose and function of each?

·                     Are there any proposals to address the culture of Maternity Services to ensure that it is caring?  Action plans can only take a service so far and the comments of the CQC that “it was clear that the standard of care [in maternity services] was inadequate in a large number of cases” and that “Staff appeared to be unaware of the potential value of patient input into service improvement” seem to need a more fundamental response.  Would you like to comment?

All items, bar those relating to the maternity unit had been completed.  Issues at the unit remained an area of challenge and related mainly to the ‘culture’ at the unit.  Nevertheless, obstetric services and management of midwifery vacancies at the unit had been deemed to be good.

The Trust was looking at how to better monitor and improve the experience of patients and their families at the maternity unit and how to survey this in real time.  External support, which included new clinical leadership, had been implemented.  The Trust was also evaluating how to better report improvements in culture at the maternity unit.

Subsequent to the publication of the initial Compliance Action Plan, all items in the Plan had been RAG rated.  The updated version of the report would be circulated to Members after the meeting.

·                     Could you explain what the PLACE template is designed to monitor?  Is it cleaning or clutter?

• In relation to page 10 of 13, neither of the “Action taken” documents appear to be available.  Can you say in summary what they contain.  If they relate to remedial action to add equipment to the asset register and conduct missing tests, what protocols have been put in place to ensure that further remedial action is not needed in future?

The template had been designed to enable monitoring of the quality of the physical environment at the Trust.  This included updating and replacing equipment and ensuring that a rolling programme of renewal, as part of the local programme of governance, was in place. 

·                     In relation to page 12 of 13 relating to inadequate staffing levels, the July Finance  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.

Report of the Director of Public Health.

The Sub Committee received a report of the Director of Public Health which provided an update on progress resulting from the recommendations set out in the NHS Health Checks Scrutiny Report for Barnet and Harrow (January 2014).

Following a brief overview of the report by an officer, Members made the following comments and asked the following questions:

·                     Please can you provide some background regarding the outreach pilot programme for NHS Health Checks that has been agreed with a GP practice in Barnet?

 Public Health assessed the value of the project and as this was a small pilot outreach project with a value below £5k only one quote was required..  Because the tariffs for Health Checks were fixed, carrying out a procurement exercise in this particular case would not have lowered the price.  Many local GP practices had registered for the NHS Health checks in the past but had failed to follow through.   Public Health were  approached by a high performing, large local GP practice in Barnet that had indicated an interest in carrying out NHS Health Checks in the community.  The size of the practice and its capacity to deliver had been main factors in its being chosen to carry out the pilot programme.  To date no Health Checks had been delivered in Harrow through the outreach project.

·                     What lessons could be learnt from other London Boroughs with higher take up rates of Health Checks?

The officer stated that further discussion with Public Health England was planned regarding this issue.  Harrow’s model had been to roll out Health Checks through GP practices only, whereas, other authorities had adopted other methods of delivery.  However, there were plans to use other providers to deliver Health Checks and to  promote the programme to improve take-up rates.

·                     How would NHS Health Checks be publicized to faith groups and hard to reach groups? 

The officer advised that there were plans to work closely with third sector organisations to target the above groups.

RESOLVED:  That the report be noted.

Report of the Divisional Director, Strategic Commissioning.

The Sub Committee received a report of the Divisional Director of Strategic commissioning which provided an update on the work of the Joint Health and Overview Scrutiny Committee.

An adviser to the Sub Committee stated that, in his view, out of hospital services provided by Clinical Commissioning groups were crucial to service provision in North West London, and should therefore be included in the Sub?Committee’s work programme.  Members concurred with this view.

RESOLVED:  That the report be noted.