Issue - meetings

In accordance with Minute No. 65 of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board, Paul Theaker, Operational Commissioner, Children and Young People’s Service, and Ruth Fletcher-Brown, Public Health Specialist, reported on the current progress of the Scrutiny Review’s twelve recommendations.

A full Scrutiny Review had been carried out by a sub-group of the Health and Improving Lives Select Commissions between September, 2014 and March, 2015. 

NHS England’s Future in Mind Report was published in May 2015 setting out a clear national ambition to transform the design and delivery of a local offer of services for children and young people with mental health needs.  The Rotherham CAMHS Transformation Plan was developed in response to the Report and encompassed all local emotional wellbeing and mental health transformational developments.  The response to the Scrutiny Review was, therefore, aligned to the local CAMHS Transformation Plan and the response to the Scrutiny Review was monitored through the CAMHS Partnership Group as part of the overall plan.

RDASH had been undertaking a whole CAMHS service reconfiguration and would be complete by June, 2016.  The reconfiguration included the establishment of clear treatment pathways, a Single Point of Access and locality workers linked with locality based Early Help and Social Care Teams as well as schools and GPs.

Consideration was given to the Appendix which contained the response to the recommendations.  Discussion ensued with the following issues raised/highlighted:-

-          Part of the Select Commission’s work going forward into the new municipal year could be a deep dive into recommendation 4 (whole school pilot) to ensure it was meeting its target

-          The new Workers were now in place (recommendation 6).  They would be contacting Schools from Friday, 22^nd April and making the links with partners

-          There had been a deterioration in the wait for an appointment.  As of 8^th April, 153 young people were waiting for an appointment into CAMHS (recommendation 8).  The target was 95% of young people seen within 3 weeks – 28% at the moment.  There was now a weekly meeting in place with the Assistant Director of RDASH and was monitored on a weekly basis.  Part of the feedback was in terms of some of the reconfiguration work and staff not being in post but was something that the CCG and the Council were looking at very closely

-          Why had that target not been met?  Was there a particular period in the year?  Any reason why that particular month slipped behind the target?

Not particularly.  There were periods e.g. end of school term when a number of referrals came through from schools.  The information received was that it was primarily down to the Service reconfiguration not being in place.  They had employed agency workers until September so even though all staff would be in post, there would be the additional agency workers to deal with the backlog

-          Was there a duplication in cost?  What kind of costs were we talking about?  Once the new staff were embedded the Commission would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 96