To receive feedback from the last meeting of the Gloucestershire Health and Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

44.1           Members received an update from Councillor Mrs J E Day, the Council’s representative on the Gloucestershire Health and Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee, on matters discussed at the last meeting of the Panel held on 15 September 2015.

44.2           Councillor Day advised that the community hospitals in the country were recognised as valuable and vital community assets and, going forward, the Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group and Gloucestershire Care Services Trust wanted to ensure that they were being used effectively to best support local communities.  The Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group had established a Transforming Community Hospitals Group in order to take this matter forward.  The Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group had recently commissioned a review of community services in the Forest of Dean.  This was about developing a plan for high quality and affordable community and social services in the Forest of Dean locality.  The Gloucestershire Health and Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee would have a statutory role in any consultation on proposals relating to substantial or significant variations to services.  The Committee was very aware that Gloucester and Cheltenham did not have any community hospitals and it would be important to understand how community services could be effectively provided in those areas.

44.3           The Committee had received the Adult Social Care and Public Health Performance Report for quarter 1 of 2015/16 and had been disappointed to see that performance of direct payments, reassessments, drug and alcohol performance and health checks were still of concern.  The Director of Adult Services had explained the activity that was in place to address those matters and the Committee would be able to follow this up at the Adult Social Care and Public Health workshop on 16 November 2015.

44.4           The Committee continued to be concerned with ambulance response times, however, it would be receiving a ‘spotlight’ item on South Western Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust performance at its meeting on 3 November.  It had been noted that there were challenges around performance against the stroke targets; this had been identified earlier in the year and four Members of the Committee had subsequently visited the Stroke Pathway at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital to better understand the issues.  The Committee had also received patient and public feedback in respect of Healthwatch Gloucestershire and had felt that the work which it undertook was extremely valuable.

44.5           It had been pleasing to note the awards which had been won by NHS providers in the county, in particular the awards won by the Hospitals Trust at the Gloucestershire Apprenticeships Awards 2015 where their Lifelong Learning Team had won Employer of the Year and one of their apprentices had won two awards including Apprentice of the Year. 

44.6           The Chairman understood that Healthwatch Gloucestershire was keen to get involved with communities and he suggested that it might be beneficial for the Overview and Scrutiny Committee to receive a presentation in early 2016 which would provide Members with information to disseminate within their Wards.  A Member explained that he had received a number of emails and comments from members of the public raising concern in relation to the apparent merging of GP surgeries.  He questioned whether this was related to the proposals for the new ‘super surgery’ and whether the right messages were being adequately conveyed to the public.  It was noted that this was the responsibility of the Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group, however, the Corporate Services Group Manager undertook to speak to the Member outside of the meeting to get an idea of the specific problem.

44.7           The Chairman thanked the Council’s representative for her presentation and indicated that the update would be circulated to Members via email following the meeting.  It was

RESOLVED          1.   That the feedback from the Gloucestershire Health and Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee be NOTED.

2.  That Healthwatch Gloucestershire be invited to give a presentation at an Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting in early 2016 and that the Work Programme be updated accordingly.