Agenda item

To hear views from public, patients groups and other interested community organisations on the draft sustainability and transformation plan, prior to formal public consultation. Members of the public will have registered their interest to speak prior to the meeting and presented a written submission.

The Chair stated that the Commission had previously invited members of the public, patients’ groups and other interested community organisations to submit their views on the draft Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP).  A number of individuals and representatives of community organisations had registered their interest to address the Commission and had submitted written submissions.  Each person would be given 5 minutes to summarise their submission and the submission would be published with the minutes unless the person asked for this not to be done.

The primary purpose of people presenting their submission was for the Commission to hear at first hand the views being expressed and there would be no opportunity for members of the Commission to ask questions on the presentations.  Representatives of the CCG were present but they would not be asked to respond to the submissions, but they would take note of the submissions for future reference.

Consideration of the draft STP was part of a long process and there would be other opportunities to for members to discuss any issues raised in the submissions.

The Chair then invited the following to address the Commission for a maximum period of 5 minutes each:-

a)         Dr Rupert Earl, Honorary Lead on Care Policy, Spinal Injuries Association.  A copy of the submission is attached as Appendix A to these minutes.

b)         Dt Sally Ruane, Health Policy Research Unit, DeMonfort University. A copy of the submission is attached as Appendix B to these minutes.

c)         Tahita Sinfield – 38 Degrees Loughborough.  A copy of the submission is attached as Appendix C to these minutes.

d)         Andrew Ross, Unite the Union Community Branch Leicester Area. A copy of the submission is attached as Appendix D to these minutes. 

e)         Jane Lane, Health Visitor, Leicestershire Unite Health Sector Branch.  A copy of the submission is attached as Appendix E to these minutes.

f)          Kathy Reynolds, Leicester Mercury Patients’ Panel.  A copy of the submission is attached as Appendix F to these minutes

g)         Robert Ball, Campaign Against NHS Privatization.  A copy of the submission is attached as Appendix G to these minutes

h)        Margaret Pitcher, Member of the Public.  Made the following comments and observations:-

·         GPs are under considerable pressure now and when a misdiagnosis happens it can become costly in terms of the costs of long term treatments.  Putting additional responsibilities on GPs could make the likelihood of misdiagnosis more likely.

·         Patients with long term complex issues often volunteered for studies and allowed their data to be for shared medical research and training and that was not likely to happen at a GP level.  Also, medical students were often present with consultants and this element of training would be lost if care was transferred to GPs.

·         Reservations that that giving GPs and primary care more complex work would not be beneficial.  GPs didn’t have enough time at the present and putting more pressure on them did not make sense. There was a need for more trained specialist staff.

·         Who would monitor the standards in the in the primary care sector?

·         Concerns expressed about proposed sales of NHS estates.

i)          Michael Mccloghlan, Member of the public. Made the following comments and observations:-

·         The draft STP is full of jargon and lacks details on specific proposals.

·         The draft STP contains no details of existing capacity levels to give a comparison of what is sustainable, and seemed to be aspirational rather than specific planning.

The Chair re-iterated that this item was only one part of process.  At the Council debate in the previous week, the Deputy City Mayor had made it clear that Members would not simply sign off the STP as there were huge concerns held by both councillors and members of the community.  She felt that this was a critical moment in NHS which needed public scrutiny.  Britain was 17^th in Europe in terms of the percentage of GDP spent on health, and the Government were proposing to spend less for quality services.  There were concerns that the STP, as a process, was bringing about change by stealth and making the more profitable elements of health care easier to be privatised; which would leave the most difficult and costly elements behind.  It was important that the public made their views known to their MPs and the public.

AGREED:-

That the members of the public and the representatives of community organisations be thanked for their submissions.