Agenda and minutes

Introductions were led by the Chair.

Councillors Pantling and O’Donnell as the items on the agenda were of interest to them as Chair and Vice-Chair of Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Commission respectively.

Apologies were received from Councillor Rita Patel.

Members are asked to declare any interests they may have in the business to be discussed.

Members of the Commission were asked to declare any interests they may have in the business on the agenda.

Councillor Joshi declared an Other Disclosable Interest in that his wife worked for the Reablement Team at Leicester City Council.

In accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct neither interest was considered so significant that it was likely to prejudice the Councillor’s judgement of the public interest and therefore neither Councillor was required to withdraw from the meeting during consideration of any items on the agenda.

The minutes of the meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission held on 16 June 2022 have been circulated and the Commission is asked to confirm them as a correct record.

Matters Arising

Minute Item 85. Carers Strategy Consultation Report

The Chair informed the meeting that, following a full discussion and comments from Adult Social Care (ASC) Members on the report item, he had raised the concerns and recommendations at Overview Select Committee (OSC) on 30 June 2022, in light of which the OSC had recommended the item be included on the OSC work programme regarding the corporate consultation / public engagement processes.

Extra Care Development Scheme

With the requirement for a link member for the project, Councillor Joshi had put himself forward as the Chair. Officers were invited to contact him for further details, and he would keep ASC Commission Members informed of progress. Also, in relation to the Extra Care Development Scheme, the lead officers encouraged Members of the Commission to visit sites across the city and dates could be arranged. The visits were still pending and would be arranged in the near future.

Diary Date

Members were informed that the Chair, and Councillor Pantling as Chair of Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Commission had agreed to hold a couple of joint scrutiny meetings for the municipal year 2022/23. The Chair said it was a positive step as they were increasingly aware that many topics discussed were of common interest to both Commissions. The first joint meeting was planned to tale place on 6^th October 2022, the papers for which would be circulated to Members nearer to the date.

AGREED:

That the minutes of the meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission held on 16 June 2022 be confirmed as a correct record.

The Monitoring Officer to report on any petitions received.

The Monitoring Officer reported that no petitions had been received.

The Monitoring Officer to report on any questions, representations or statements of case.

The Monitoring Officer reported that no questions, representations and statements of case had been submitted in accordance with the Council’s procedures.

HealthWatch Leicester and Leicestershire submits the annual report.

Members of the Commission are recommended to note the report and pass any comments to the representatives from HealthWatch Leicester and Leicestershire.

HealthWatch Leicester and Leicestershire submitted its Annual Report for 2021-22, which provided a summary of the activity it had undertaken as a jointly commissioned contract. Members of the Commission were recommended to note the report and pass any comments to the representatives from HealthWatch Leicester and Leicestershire.

The Chair reminded Members that Healthwatch was a standing invitee to the Commission, and on Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Commission. The Chair also made reference to the video that had been circulated to Members by Healthwatch of the highlights of the report.

Harsha Kotecha (Chair of Healthwatch) and Gemma Barrow (Chief Officer) were present. Mr Joe Johal from Healthwatch was also welcomed to the meeting, who would regularly attend future meetings of ASC. During the presentation of the item, highlighted from the report was:

·         10 reports were published about improvements people wanted to see in their health care service.

·         As part of a summer tour, Healthwatch attended 36 events in the city and county and engaged directly with over 2,400 people.

·         During that time a survey was conducted, and 350 people told Healthwatch about their challenges in accessing their GP practice, which was an issue high on the Healthwatch agenda.

·         During the first lockdown, volunteers reviewed GP practice websites to see how informative an accessible they were for local people. Findings were placed in a report and shared with the Clinical Commissioning Groups at the time, and consolidated into research following which an action plan was put together to look at service improvements.

·         Health and care settings could not be visited during the pandemic. The Enter and View programme of GP practices was resumed as soon as HWLL were able to go into health settings, such as care homes, hospices etc.

·         HWLL utilised the text messaging service to reach more people within those practices to limit presence on site. One example was Latham House Medical Practice in Melton where over 1,000 responses were received to the patient survey, with the report being well received by the practice team, with the recommendations for improvements welcomed.

·         During the past year, HWLL had attended 14 carers groups, hearing from 123 carers and 14 members of staff and volunteers. Carers issues and rights would remain high on the HWLL agenda, with social media being used to raise awareness and invite people to share experiences.

·         Also launched were monthly themed focus groups called ‘Let’s Talk’ to discuss with people changes to the health and care landscape during the Covid pandemic.

·         Dentistry is a topic high on the agenda, with findings placed in a report and shared with the BBC, after receiving many calls from people having trouble accessing a dentist, and with evidence shared with Healthwatch England.

·         A big project during 2021 was around male suicide, with contact made with agencies involved with suicide prevention in the city and county to identify gaps in service provision. The Have a Conversation campaign focussed on getting men to talk, and work was undertaken with Equality Action, a local charity to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education submits a report on the Health and Care reforms.

Members of the Commission are recommended to note the report and pass any comments to the Strategic Director for Social Care and Education.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education submitted a report on the Health and Care reforms. Members of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission were recommended to note the report and pass any comments to the Strategic Director for Social Care and Education.

Councillor Russell, Deputy City Mayor for Social Care and Anti-Poverty, introduced the report. She highlighted the raft of expectancies of local authorities by government and that they were placing huge additional administrative burdens, where the preparation for inspections was huge, against a backdrop across the country of struggling capacity and funding. Additionally, it was not known if the new prime minister would retain the National Insurance precept, therefore a lot of work was having to be done at risk.

The Deputy City Mayor wanted people to be aware of the scale of work that was being accepted and what that meant for team who were doing an incredible job. She was also grateful for the work that the Strategic Director for Social Care and Education was undertaking nationally with ADASS to help understand what the national picture was to ensure the Council did not fall down pitfalls that other authorities had.

Martin Samuels, Strategic Director for Social Care and Education informed the meeting that the health and social care system was going through the biggest period of change in a decade. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 was being replaced, and a number of Care Act 2014 elements that had not yet been implemented were now supposed to be being implemented, sometimes in amended form. There was a raft of White Papers, legislation, guidance and reports, the links for which were included in the report.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education noted that Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) had ceased to exist at the end of June 2022 and had been replaced with Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) which in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR) would operate on the same footprint as the combined CCGs had been working at for the past few years, therefore there were no particular differences, which was fortunate compared to other parts of the country where some ICBs’ footprint bears little relationship to local authority footprints, and some authorities were split between two ICBs, or there was just the one ICB for a very large area, such as Greater Manchester.

Members were informed that all ICBs were now required to have a level of representation from the local authorities in their area. The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education was now the city council’s official representative on the ICB for LLR. In addition, the Assistant City Mayor for Health, as the Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Board, had been invited to attend the ICB meetings. Unlike the position with CCGs, the NHS trusts were also members of the ICB Board which was a deliberate change from the previous structure. This change was an important one, as it eliminated the Commissioner / Provider split which has operated in the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The current work programme for the Commission is attached.  The Commission is asked to consider this and make comments and/or amendments as it considers necessary.

Members noted the work programme for the Commission.

Suggested items for the work programme were:

·         Joint Working with Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Commission – the Commission will be conducting a couple of Joint meetings with Health for topics of common interest.

·         Ongoing review into the Cost of Care topic.

·         Suggested was the impact on the rise of cost of living on the various services offered within adult social care, with significant concerns in older persons homes in the city, with rising energy cost increases potentially leading to huge instability in the service.

It was agreed to postpone the date of the next Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission meeting scheduled for 13 October 2022 to move to 27 October 2022 in order for the Market Sustainability Report to be available for the meeting.

Councillor Singh Johal gave apologies for the meeting on 27 October 2022.

There being no other items of urgent business the meeting closed at 7.33pm.