Agenda item

The Director of Finance with NHS Leicestershire County and Rutland will make a presentation on the Primary Care Trust Strategic Operating Plan, setting out its investment and disinvestment priorities for the year ahead, its approach to dealing with the financial challenges facing the local NHS and managing the transition to future arrangements as set out in the Health Bill.

Sue Bishop, (Director of Finance with NHS Leicester City, Leicestershire County and Rutland), tabled an updated version of the presentation on the 2011/12 Strategic Operating Plan (SOP) and Financial Plan that had been circulated with the agenda.  A copy of this is attached at the end of these minutes for information.

Sue Bishop drew particular attention to the following points:-

·            The 2011/12 operating framework was issued in December 2010.  The main themes of this were transition and reform, transparency and local accountability, and service quality;

·            Part of the dis-establishment of primary care trusts involved moving some services to local authorities and some to national provision, (for example, specialist services would be focussed in a small number of units around the country).  The proposed GP consortia would be nearer to the patients, so would have a greater understanding of their needs;

·            The City, county and Rutland areas all had very different health needs.  This was recognised in the Plans and underpinned what it was expected would be delivered during 2011/12;

·            The areas for improvement had been identified nationally.  The underlying theme of these was the protection of vulnerable groups in the population;

·            Locally, an additional £44 million of funding had been agreed to protect services.  This equated to approximately 3% of the budget.  Just under £564 million was available to spend across Leicester City;

·            Incentives for health and social care services to work together would be provided through the Plans.  In this way, it was hoped to increase social support and reduce hospital admissions and readmissions.  To assist with reducing readmissions, approximately £10 million had been made available for re-ablement services;

·            Just over £28 million had been set aside for service transformation.  Advances in technology and treatments meant that it now was possible to treat patients to a more complex level, so the way in which services were provided needed to change.  Under the current Plans, it was expected that a surplus of just under £10 million would be generated, which could be used to fund services in future years;

·            The SOP was supported by the newly emerging GP consortia and had been submitted to the Department of Health for approval.  It was expected that this would be received in the next few weeks.  Consultation would be undertaken if needed before it was implemented;

·            QIPP was a programme created nationally, but delivered locally, to improve Quality, Innovate, gain Productivity and achieve the Prevention of disease; and

·            Challenges and risks had been identified, to ensure that things that would make the biggest difference to the public remained the main focus of the Plans and that clinical engagement was maintained.

The following points were made discussion on this item:-

·            There was a need to ensure that quality services were delivered.  Sue Bishop confirmed that more was being required from fewer resources. This was helped by the quality of data available, as this helped in making more accurate comparisons and benchmarking against other areas;

·            In many parts of the country, respiratory disease was dealt with in the community, as this could reduce, or avoid, hospital admissions, and improved outcomes for patients.   Financial savings also could be made, as hospitals and GPs could pay different rates for drugs, due to the different ways in which they bought them;

·            Most respiratory disease was driven by smoking.  Helping smokers to stop, and stopping the recruitment of replacement smokers, therefore as key areas of work between the City Council and the NHS.  The importance of air quality, including traffic pollution, also was important, so work on this included the promotion of activities such as walking or cycling; and

·            Under the current White Paper on reforming health services, responsibility for health improvement would move from the NHS to local authorities, which would help health improvement become embedded in local services.