Members of the Board to make announcements, if appropriate, on topics of current interest.
Minutes:
The Chair welcomed Karen Chouhan back to the Board, following the recent difficulties with VAL in relation to them novating the Healthwatch Leicester contract. He was pleased that Healthwatch was now on a more positive footing and was moving forward to be completely independent.
Karen Chouhan, thanked the Chair and the Council for its involvement in helping to resolving the issue. She also requested a copy of the report on the outcomes of the workshop held on 3 February 2105 which had discussed issues in service gaps for adults and children in crisis. The Chair confirmed that this would be forwarded in due course. `
The Chair also referred to the publication of the recent OFSTED Inspection report. He did not intend to discuss the issue or repeat discussions that had already happened elsewhere but wished to give assurances that there was active and intense scrutiny taking place as a result. He wished to acknowledge the references in the report to the Board and to the wider health community. The issues in the report were of utmost concern to all partners involved with the Board. The report cited the Health and Wellbeing Board and commented that the Safeguarding of Children was not explicitly mentioned in the Board’s strategy. Whilst that was an important observation, he wished to affirm that this did not mean that the issues were not of importance or significance in the day to day management of all the organisations involved with the Board. Each of the organisations had statutory responsibilities and undertook vigorous and robust work around a number of themes and issues and these were acknowledged in the report.
Following the publication of the report the Chair had written to NHS England and the Clinical Commissioning Group to seek assurances about their approach to these issues and the training given to front line health professionals around safeguarding of children. The responses received provided those reassurances. There was no place for complacency and the Board would continue to take a keen interest in these issues across all the Board’s work areas. The Board had already demonstrated this by signing the protocols with the Children’s Trust and the Children Safeguarding Board and had strengthened the membership of the Board by the addition of the Lead Executive Member for children’s and young services.
The Board would be holding development sessions to address the issues raised by the report and to consider the Board’s response to them. Other partners mentioned in the report would also be preparing their own responses. The Chair intended to bring a report to a future Board meeting on the Board’s response to the OFSTED report to be considered in public.
Sue Lock, Managing Director, Leicester City Clinical Commissioning Group, supported the Chair’s comments and felt it was important to recognise the high priority that is given to safeguarding. She welcomed the proposed development sessions which would help to strengthen an area that was already a firm focus within the CCG.
Andy Keeling, Chief Operating Officer, commented that partners would be fully engaged in the improvement process going forward directly and not just through the various partnerships groups that existed. A further observation in the OFSTED report had been that there were good partnership arrangements in place but the impact of those partnerships in relation to safeguarding was not able to be articulated strongly enough through the inspection process. There would be an opportunity to discuss how that can be demonstrated better in the future.