Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed Councillor Glover as a new member to the Committee.

Apologies were received from Councillor Bhavsar, Councillor Manish Sood (Leicester City Council) and Mr W Liquorish and Ms B Newton (Leicestershire County Council).

Members are asked to declare any interests they may have in the business on the agenda, and/or indicate that Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 applies to them.

Members were asked to declare any interests they may have in the business on the agenda and/or declare that Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 applied to them.

Councillor Allen declared a non-prejudicial personal interest as his wife was in receipt of a care package provided in the City.

Mr A Bailey CC declared a personal non-prejudicial interest as his son and daughter in law were employees of the partnership trust.

Mr Houseman CC declared a personal interest in Item 6 “East Midlands Ambulance Service Patient Transport Service”, as he lived near Syston Ambulance Station and was the ward Councillor for that area.

The minutes of the meeting of the Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on 22 September 2008 are attached and the Committee is asked to confirm them as a correct record.

Mr A Bailey CC stated that he had been recorded as giving his apologies and being present at the last meeting and it should just have been his apologies.

RESOLVED:

that the minutes of the meeting held on 22^nd September 2008 be agreed as a correct record subject to the above amendment.

Jo Yeaman, Director of Marketing, Communications, and Patient & Public Involvement, will give a presentation update on the Next Stage Review.

Jo Yeaman, Lead Director for Consultation, Next Stage Review Programme attended the meeting and gave an update on the Next Stage Review.

Jo announced that she would be providing a verbal update because the review was still work in progress and data was still being collated that had been collected over the last few months. There were three phases to the review, the first phase was Engagement.

There was to be an independent report conducted by De Montfort University on the engagement programme and this would be available in the next 2-3 weeks. Jo stated that the report would be made available when it was made public. 4,000 responses had been received from individuals and patient and public representatives across Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, which was one of the best responses from a public consultation on this scale. Of the responses 40% had been received from Black and Minority Ethnic groups. This was particularly pleasing, as greater efforts had been made to engage that community. The gender splits in the results were 51% male and 49% female. Jo informed the Committee that there was excellent engagement from older people and while there was good engagement with younger people there were areas for improvement. The Committee was informed that a lot of lessons had been learnt from the consultation as nothing had been done before on this scale in Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland.  Due to the engagement 1,200 community groups had now been listed on the central database and the contacts for the groups had been checked. Jo also stated that direct mailing had been extremely effective, as had the discussion day events that had been held, however the bus adverts and the media coverage to attract people had been less effective but although these methods did not generate many responses they had raised awareness of the review. 

The next scheduled phase was entitled Delivery of Promise.  Jo announced that at the next meeting of the Committee there would be a detailed presentation on this phase. The Thrombolysis treatment would be available 24/7 from mid March 2009. The Committee were informed that a 24/7 stroke service was being worked towards and the mini strokes pathway had been redesigned. This would mean that patients who had suffered suspected mini strokes would now be seen within 48 hours from the time they had been referred from their GP, this was a change on the previous time, which was around 2 weeks or more. Jo stated that it was important that a person who had suffered a mini stroke was assessed immediately as there was a high risk of suffering a full stroke. The urgent care centre would now be open to patients without appointments. Jo commented that there would be 2 new GP practices to be built in the city and contracts appointed. The health centre in Charnwood would open in January 2009 and there were further developments planned in the next 2-3 years. The Committee were informed that Leicester City was on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28.

The Acting Director of Finance and Procurement submits a report that summarises the key issues identified in the Trust’s 2007/08 Annual Audit Letter.

Malcolm Lowe-Lauri, Chief Executive Officer, University Hospitals of Leicester, NHS Trust and Helen Seth, Acting Director of Strategy University Hospitals of Leicester, NHS Trust were in attendance to present the Annual Audit letter 2007/08 and its fit with capital development plans.

Malcolm also reported back on the results from the Annual Health Check 2007/2008. In the quality of service to patients category the UHL Trust had maintained an excellent record, which it had now received for 3 years running.  The trust had been compliant and met all 43 core standards. They had met 10 out of 11 national targets with the one not met being Revascularisation. Malcolm explained that there had been a fire in one of the theatres and there had been capacity constraints in the Intensive Treatment Unit. However the issues had now been resolved. Malcolm also explained that 9 out of the 10 new national targets had been achieved with the exception being the referral to treatment time target.

The Committee was also informed that the score for the use of resources category had dropped from good to fair primarily due to a reduction in the Auditor’s Local Evaluation (ALE) score in the Financial reporting, Internal control and Value for money categories which had dropped from 3 to 2.

Malcolm explained the recommendations and actions from the Auditors Local Evaluation 2007/08. The auditors had identified some weaknesses in the assurance framework and they needed more evidence. They suggested that the risk management processes be strengthened. The communication and procurement strategies were not up to date and it was recommended that these be kept up to date and the progress of both be regularly reported on. The auditors were not clear that benchmarking and reference cost information was being used to improve cost efficiency. There was also a recommendation that the clinical and service strategy be finalised and the medium term financial strategy be revised.  

In terms of action being taken, Malcolm explained that there was a detailed action plan as part of ‘Getting into Strategy’ that had been endorsed by the Trust executive on 26 October 2008. The idea of the plan was to make sure the Trust was fit for purpose. There would be reporting of the progress report of the action plan to the Trust Board meeting in December.

There was a recommendation from the auditors that International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) accounting requirements be adopted by the NHS. Malcolm commented that there was already an action to ensure this would happen. A full review of the implication of IFRS had been undertaken with an associated action plan completed for the Department of Health conversion timetable. The next meeting with the Department of Health to discuss the development of capital investment plans was taking place on Thursday 27 November 2008. The plan was to prepare for a comprehensive engagement and consultation process to inform the development of strategic capital investment plans.

 It was also stated that there should be full disclosure of salary information. Malcolm  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29.

Mark Shepherd, General Manager Patient Transport Services, East Midlands Ambulance Service, will give a presentation on the patient transport service.

This item could not go ahead as Mark Shepherd, General Manager, Patient Transport Services, East Midlands Ambulance Service did not attend the meeting.

Members are asked to agree dates for future meetings of the Committee for as suggested below:

Monday 9 February 2009

Monday 23 March 2009

All meetings to start at 10.30a.m.

The following meetings were noted as future meetings of the Committee:

Monday 9 February 2009

Monday 23 March 2009

The meetings would start at 10:30am.

The meeting closed at 12:08pm.