Agenda item

Mr John Adler, UHL Trust Chief Executive, to present a report on the UHL’s Strategic Direction.  A copy of the UHL Strategic Direction Booklet is also attached for information.

Mr John Adler, UHL Trust Chief Executive, presented a report on the UHL’s Strategic Direction.  A copy of the UHL Strategic Direction Booklet was previously circulated for information.  Sharon Hotson, Director of Clinical Quality, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and Mark Wightman, Director of Communications and External Relations, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust were also in attendance.

Mr Adler commented that the Strategic Direction had been shared with, and informed by discussions with staff, LINks, MPs and NHS partners.  It was important to recognise that this was not the Trust’s strategy but it did set out the direction of travel and key themes for the hospitals for the next 5 years.  The document was still work in progress.  The Trust was committed to providing high quality, patient centred healthcare and this was at the heart of the strategic direction.  The ‘Quality Commitment’ expressly stated that during the lifetime of the strategy the Trust would ‘save more lives, reduce avoidable harm and improve patient experience’.  Emergency care provision was a high priority, as the current growth in emergency admission was unsustainable, and progress was being made to address the pressure but there was more to do.

Other areas of interest which the Trust were developing were:-

·         focusing on being the ‘provider of choice’ for patients especially where there was competition for services from hospitals outside of the Trust.

·         building on its good performance in the area of research by shortly making a bid to become a UK Cancer Research Centre, which was higher than the current ‘Unit’ status.      

·         working with staff to improve practices and standards of care through the ‘listening into action’ programme which was a tried and tested model for this purpose.

·         aiming to be a Foundation Trust by April 2015.  The original deadline of April 2013 had been overtaken by the outcome of the Frances Report.  The Foundation Trust application process was focused heavily on quality processes.

·         rationalising the services provided by the three hospital in the Trust.  The General Hospital would be become the centre for much of the non-emergency elective surgery specialising in outpatients and day care case work.  The Royal Infirmary would focus on emergency care and Glenfield Hospital would become the focus for specialist care in cardiovascular, respiratory and renal care services. 

Members asked questions and made observations and comments as follows:-

·         had the 2011 census information been used to assess the footfall for services and what needed to be done in the next 5 years to meet the changing demographics of the population, especially in relation to the needs of the Black Minority Ethnic population?

·         the elderly often found their experiences at the Accident and Emergency Unit daunting and it was suggested that an older persons’ champion should be identified to lessen these effects.

·         would the proposed new model for glaucoma testing only be carried out at opticians?

·         had any discussion taken place with the local bus operators in relation to the rationalising of services at the three hospital sites as this could result in modal changes of passenger movements?  

·         reference was made to the breakup of the previous Better Care Together concept and whether there were any consequences for the Strategic Direction.

·         whilst recognising the importance of research within the Trust there was a balance to be achieved between allocating resources to research into the ‘high-end’ level of specialist services such as cardiovascular and respiratory services and conveying the benefits of this to patients receiving treatment at the lower levels. 

In response these questions and comments, Mr Adler, and Mr Wightman commented:-

·         that the census information was not too critical to the direction of travel issues in the Strategic Direction but they would be required at lower levels of service implementation which would need to focus on demographic changes for service provision.

·         the headline statistics of the census had been discussed with the City Mayor.  Generally the population in the City was getting younger, there were fewer elderly people living alone and employment prospects were improving, which had a positive impact upon the health of the population.  The opposite set of factors generally applied to the County and the Trust’s ability in getting the right balance of service provision would be key to the whole process.

·         dementia champions had recently been launched within the hospital, and the treatment of the frail and elderly in emergency department was being re-worked and much more could be done to avoid the frail and elderly being admitted to hospital through home care initiatives.

·         the issue of discussions with bus operators would be taken on board and referred to the Trust’s transport co-ordinator.

·         the new model for undertaking glaucoma tests at opticians was merely one option, other options could include conducting the test at GP surgeries and hospitals.

·         the Strategic Direction had been discussed with the three CCG Board’s and the had not identified any incompatibility issues.

·         some work had been carried out with patients groups to let the know the benefits of research to lower levels of service but it was recognised that more could be done, and the suggestion of building these benefits onto regular communications was accepted.      

In summary the Chair commented that generally service provision worked less well where there were several organisations involved in providing the services.  The Commission needed to better understand these relationships in order to be able to scrutinise these processes in a more structured way in the future.   The Chair also commented that the emphasis of the Better Care Together concept had been a joint approach with a community services and primary care involvement, whereas the current approach appeared to lack this and be focused on the UHL only.   

RESOLVED:

that the report be received and that Mr Adler be thanked for his update on the current strategic direction of the Trust.