Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillors Allen and Dawood from Leicester City Council  and Mr Hyde CC from Leicestershire County Council.

Members are 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 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.

Mr Bailey CC, Mr Moore CC and Ms Newton CC declared non-prejudicial interests in that they had relatives who worked for Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust.

Following a request from the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Committee, Professor Antony Sheehan, Chief Executive, Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT), submits a report concerning the proposed closure of the Grange Respite Care Home, following the decision to reconfigure the Health Respite Care Service. Brian Williams from CVS Community Partnership also submits a document outlining concerns on the matter. These documents have been submitted in order that the Committee may discuss the matter.

Please note that this item is considered urgent due to the imminent closure of the facility.

At the request of the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Committee, a discussion will take place concerning the Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust’s (LPT) reporting procedures, particularly in relation to the reporting of serious adverse events.

Please note that this item is considered urgent business due to LPT’s reporting time scales.

The Chair outlined concerns regarding Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust’s (LPT) reporting procedures at their Board meetings in relation to “Serious Adverse Events.” He felt that a commitment by the LPT to clarify the position of such reporting had not been met and Members had expressed concern that it could be perceived that this information was being withheld. Concern was also raised that infection control figures would now be classed as confidential at these meetings. It was also stated that a request for an explanation on the matter had not been received.

Professor Sheehan stressed that LPT endeavoured to be as transparent as possible in reporting, but that on occasions there had to be confidentiality, often due to the small number of cases to report. He assured the Committee that the issues raised were of paramount importance and explained the various levels of reporting to ensure that the figures were properly addressed. New reporting arrangements now meant that instead of just raw data being reported to the Board, trends would be highlighted as well. Any more frequent reporting would lose its significance and skew the statistics due to the low numbers to report. It was felt that this would be the most intelligent use of the information. With regard to infection control, it was reported that LPT had very low infection rates.

Members reiterated their concern about transparency, stating that the public needed reassurance on these matters. It was queried whether the information should be classed as confidential.

Professor Sheehan stated that the governance process had been changed in line with the Healthcare Commission’s guidance and would impact on the bid to become a foundation trust. Weekly figures on serious events were reported to him and would be presented to the Board along with trends and performance quarterly, preferably in public, but this would have to be assessed for confidentiality. Information on infections would be provided if it did not identify individual cases. There was already a level of regulation on reporting suicides, and coroner’s reports were publicly available.

RESOLVED:

That the Committee notes the explanation given regarding LPT’s reporting procedures and the assurances that LPT was committed to transparency.

The meeting closed at 10.57am.