Agenda item

Jane Taylor, Emergency Care Director, Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland will deliver a presentation on the operation of the Winter Care Plan over the winter of 2013/14.

Jane Taylor, Emergency Care Director, Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), delivered a presentation on the operation of the Winter Care Plan 2013/14. The document is attached to the minutes for information. A letter from the Deputy City Mayor was also distributed at the meeting in response to the recommendations in the Winter Care Plan Scrutiny Review, and is attached to the minutes for information.

Councillors observed that due to a recent mild winter there were not many cases of flu, and the system had not been stretched. The Emergency Care Director said the service was confident it would have coped. She added that the expectation of a harsher winter made the preventative work all the more important such as vaccinations and messages about the Norovirus being circulated all the time. The resilience of services and key triggers was also important to understand in ensuring services are well equipped.

Cllr Cooke said the Joint Scrutiny Commission (Health and Adult Social Care) needed to consider all services that have a responsibility to winter care not just the CCG and University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL) such as the Council’s services. This would give greater context as to how successful the care planning was for the winter of 2013/14, and highlight any areas that may need improving or building upon.

The Chair informed the meeting that information on how the Council’s services coped with Winter Care in 2013/14 would be brought to the next meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission.

The Emergency Care Director reported the Government had provided early indications in July of winter funding, and all plans had been approved. She added that this year the service had better resilience and could expect to have an additional 30 beds. She said that work behind the scenes had improved patient flow and improved stability, and the service was better able to deal with variations, which could be shown looking back on performance figures for the year.

The meeting was asked to note there were increased pressures on the service from 111 telephone calls and on the East Midlands Ambulance Service, which needed to be managed and communicated appropriately.

Mr Philip Parkinson said it had been about a year since the Urgent Care Centre had come into its own, but he had received positive messages about the service and in particular the triage had been helpful in ensuring the Accident and Emergency service was dealing with patients that actually needed to be there. It was mentioned that there were still problems around hospital staff not being aware of patients care plans. The Assistant City Mayor for Adult Social Care informed the meeting that there was some work ongoing around this, which would include working with patients families to avoid people not being in hospital if not appropriate.

The Chair said the response from the Deputy City Mayor contained a significant amount of information on communications and befriending, and she asked that he be invited, and more information on the topic including statistics on winter deaths be brought to the next Scrutiny Commission meeting. The Chair said there would also be value in further discussions on communication issues and asked for a meeting with the Assistant City Mayor and officers to take this further.

The Chair thanked the Emergency Care Director for the presentation.

RESOLVED:

1.    the Council’s evaluation of winter care 2013/14 and statistics relating to excess winter deaths be brought to the next Scrutiny Commission meeting.

2.    the Deputy City Mayor be invited to the next meeting; and

3.    a meeting between the Chair, Vice Chair and the Assistant City Mayor be arranged to discuss communication issues.