Agenda item

·                Better Care Fund (NHS England letter attached)

·                Health and wellbeing Website (Presentation)

(1)     Better Care Fund Plan – Assurance Review

          Further to Minute No. S24 of the meeting of the Health and Wellbeing Board held on 1st October, 2014, the Board considered correspondence from the National Director (Commissioning Operations), NHS England, stating that the Better Care Fund plan had been assessed as part of the Nationally Consistent Assurance Review (NCAR). The letter stated that the Better Care Fund plan has been placed in the ‘approved, subject to conditions’ category.

          The Strategic Director of Neighbourhoods and Adult Services outlined the content of the letter drawing particular attention to the eight separate actions and the appointment of the Better Care Adviser, Nick Clarke, who would work on developing an action plan to detail how and by when the agreed actions would be addressed to meet the conditions.  Many of the conditions would simply be met by the importing the detail onto the new template, which needed to be completed by the 7^th December, 2014 deadline.

          It was also noted that the Section 256 Transfer Document had not been included as part of the documentation, but that it be noted that the use of the Better Care Fund was in accordance with the Section 256 Transfer Document.

(2)     Health and Wellbeing Website

          Michael Holmes and Jasmine Swallow demonstrated the accessibility tabs on the new Health and Wellbeing Website, which would be subject to partnership branding.

          This also coincided with the launch of the new online survey on the 29th October, 2014 which had had 102 responses initially.  Feedback to date had been positive and had been extended to external and internal organisations and partners.

          Discussion ensued on the various links to the partner websites and how the website would be managed through the workstream group.

(3)       Health and Wellbeing Board Minutes and Meetings

The Chairman was in receipt of some correspondence from a member of the public who had raised concern about the use of acronyms in some of the reports being presented.  To alleviate this problem it was suggested that all reports have the full description with the acronym in brackets.

It was also suggested that some consideration be given to a bullet point list summary of reports for members of the public rather than them having to sieve through the large number of pages on the agenda.

This needed to be explored further on the feasibility of such a suggestion and whether it was something that could be accommodated within the resources available.

In addition, the member of the public referred to an incident involving the Foundation Trust, where an unregistered locum doctor was employed at the hospital via an agency.

The Chief Officer for the Foundation Trust provided an overview of the incident, the reasons how it came about and the outcome, which had led to an improved agency framework that provided the relevant assurances that such an incident would not occur again in the future.  It was stressed, however, that during the course of the two day locum period there were no concerns for members of the public.

(4)       Budget Consultation Process

The Deputy Leader provided an overview of the budget consultation process open to members of the public until 31^st December, 2014, on three priority areas:-

·                Protecting our most vulnerable children and adults.

·                Getting back into work and making work pay.

·                Making our streets cleaner and better.

The challenge facing the Council was for savings of £23 million next year and £50 million over the next three years.

This was a similar situation being faced across the public sector and formed part of the efficiency programmes around the Health and Wellbeing Board priority outcomes.