To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies were received from Councillors PA Andrews, KS Guthrie, Brig P Jones CBE, JLV Kenyon and GA Vaughan-Powell.

To receive details of any Members nominated to attend the meeting in place of a Member of the Committee.

Councillor A Powers for Councillor JLV Kenyon.

To receive any declarations of interest by Members in respect of items on the Agenda.

There were no declerations.

To approve and sign the Minutes of the meetings held on the 13 January and the 14 February 2014.

The Minutes of the meeting held on the 13^th January and the 14th February 2014 were approved and signed as a correct record.

To consider suggestions from members of the public on issues the Committee could scrutinise in the future.

(There will be no discussion of the issue at the time when the matter is raised.  Consideration will be given to whether it should form part of the Committee’s work programme when compared with other competing priorities.)

There were no suggestions.

To note questions received from the public and the items to which they relate.

(Questions are welcomed for consideration at a Scrutiny Committee meeting so long as the question is directly related to an item listed on the agenda.  If you have a question you would like to ask then please submit it no later than two working days before the meeting to the Committee Officer.  This will help to ensure that an answer can be provided at the meeting). 

There were no suggestions.

To hold a public accountability session to discuss the performance of organisations within the health sector in Herefordshire: 

·         Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group

·         Arden, Herefordshire and Worcestershire NHS Area Team

Mr D Williams, Director of Operations and Delivery, NHS England and Dr A Talbot-Smith, Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (HCCG) provided a presentation.

During the presentation, the following areas were highlighted:

·         That NHS England was responsible for commissioning primary care and specialist services across the country, and that the Arden, Herefordshire and Worcestershire Area Team was responsible for seven CCGs across its area and worked to ensure that they were fulfilling their duties correctly.

·         That together with the HCCG, the Local Area Team worked with social care and the local authority. The Trust Development Authority and the Wye Valley Trust were both directly accountable to it.

Dr Talbot-Smith, the Consultant in Public Health, highlighted the following areas:

that the Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group had been in operation for a year.  The Group provided clinical leadership for the County which was focused on commissioning

That there was more engagement with the patients and public, and that this had been helped by Healthwatch.

·         That a complete stroke pathway had been committed to in the County, which would involve the CCG and the County Hospital.  Emphasis would be put on stroke prevention and patient and public awareness of the issues, as well as up skilling of nursing and therapy staff at the County Hospital.

·         That a system wide dementia strategy was in place, and that progress was being made toward making Herefordshire a dementia friendly County.  There was a need to raise awareness over the importance of seeking help for the condition, and a community facing memory service had been put in place, and specialist nurses were being used in primary care. 

·         That engagement events had made it clear that the public wanted access to GPs over the weekends in order to ensure that continuity of care was in place, and that this would be added to the commissioning services.  Services currently provided by Prime Care would be recommissioned in a different way.  Budgets would be considered in their entirety, and the pathway as a whole would be commissioned in an outcome based manner.

·         That it was difficult to recruit specialists locally, and alternative telemedicine models of care using electronic methods such as Skype to share results would have to be considered.

·         That the Village Warden scheme had initially been put in place to fund wardens who would build a network of local volunteers.  Notice had been given to the Red Cross that funding would be phased out, and they had found additional sources of funding to keep the scheme going.  Pembridge and Colwall had chosen to do this through their Parish Councils.

·         That all GP practices were on the same IT system and that it was expected that data would be shared across all 24 practices as part of the Challenge Fund.  Joint care planning and sharing of data would also be a requirement within the Better Care Fund system. There were business continuity plans in place to ensure that IT systems were robust, and scenarios were modelled in around power outages.

In  ...  view the full minutes text for item 115.

To note the Committee’s Work Programme.

The Committee considered its Work Programme.