Agenda item

Questions from members of the public and the press

Minutes:

How could Learning Disability Service users be confident they would have an individual care assessment, before their services were withdrawn, as promised with the Council’s track record of conducting assessments so far?  How sensible was it to agree the closure of the Centres and Respite Service before the assessments had been done?

 

In terms of strategic priorities, you talk about how social isolation and the lack of social communication is as a prelevant risk factor for early death as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and well known risk factors such as Obesity and inactivity.  When talking about people with Learning Disabilities in terms of their ability to get out and see people in their community they are the most vulnerable so where do they come together for social interaction if you are shutting the day centres?

The Chair stated that the Board had the overall remit of health and wellbeing; the Day Centres came within the Council’s responsibility.  He had questioned the Services in detail about assessments and was very confident that the resources were in place to ensure that all the assessments took place.

 

Social isolation was important and why it was one of the new priorities of the Board as well as 3 officers of the Council looking at the overall integration plan for loneliness to present to the Board sometime in the future.  There were 3 main ways of moving forward - firstly Shared Lives, secondly Direct Payments and thirdly through a number of organisations that people with Learning Disabilities and their carers could access if they so wished.

 

In terms of the Health Service Review, I went to 2 meetings one of which was the Scrutiny Panel in Wakefield where the Chair of the Scrutiny Panel questioned the CCG on the consultation process and its depth and gave them a few ideas of how they should widen the consultation.  I also attended the Judicial Review in Leeds and the Judge, in her remarks afterwards to the barrister, had made the point that in terms of the consultation process with the Scrutiny Panels it had perhaps fallen short.

 

In terms of the Hospital Services Review have we done the job in terms of letting people know what is happening?  The videos I have seen were quite worrying in that they were rather bland.  You would think from it that there were no problems from the Health Service.

The Chair stated that, in terms of the Independent Hospital Review, he had expressed his own concern about the process.  He could not answer for the Scrutiny Panel but from looking at what was in the report at this stage it was very bland with not much detail and as such the Council response stated that it would like to see more information and detail about what might be coming down the road and making sure Rotherham got its fair share of the hubs.  We do have concerns about the lack of consultation.  We know there have been events but are concerned about the lack of consultation with the Council and Members.  We have made that point in our response.

 

There was a commitment at the moment that all the local hospitals and A&Es would remain as they were. 

 

Janet Spurling, Scrutiny Adviser to the Health Select Commission, stated that the Select Commission had been updated on the key points from the initial report but obviously, as all the local boards were looking at the report now and giving their feedback, there would be time to look again once there was something more concrete going forward.  That would be scrutinised in depth where appropriate.

 

Dr. Jason Page reported that his practice had been approached by a team of people who would be carrying out more public consultation.  One of the things they would be doing was attending GP surgeries and talking to patients so there was another layer of public consultation being organised.  They would only do that once they had something to discuss.

 

Ian Atkinson, CCG, reported that it was an independent report into the Health system which partners had been asked to comment on by 12th July in terms of the recommendations.  The views of partners had not been sought previously, so this  would start to develop potential recommendations in each workstream when a view would be able to be taken as to how it would then impact on local systems.  It might impact in different ways so each discrete area may need its own consultation.

 

I went into some of your documents about what affects people’s health and one of the key factors was of course the workplace and stresses from the workplace.  I recognise and know the CCG must be putting significant pressure on the hospital to form subsidiaries which is very worrying for the workforce.  Campaigners had noted that other authorities were starting to pull away from wholly owned subsidiaries.  Is this Board able to pass comment or put some pressure on the stemming of this process?

The Chair agreed that health and the workplace was very important. There was a Healthy Workplace Charter, including Mental Health, which the South Yorkshire authorities had pulled together and was to be piloted in 10 organisations in the near future.

 

The Place Plan had quite deliberately been included in the remit of the Board in order that the Rotherham Integrated Care Partnership reported into it.  There was a Place Board Executive under it which was responsible for the day-to-day work of the Place Board.  Currently the Place Board was focussed on positive things to improve the health of Rotherham.  In terms of pressure, it would be up to the Board to decide when it affected the health of Rotherham people to start thinking about what our reaction would be but as at the moment there was no talk whatsoever of anything like a wholly owned subsidiary coming into Rotherham.

 

Chris Morley, TRFT, confirmed that a wholly owned subsidiary was being considered by TRFT but no decision had been made as yet.  It would be a company owned by the NHS so would still report into the TRFT Board.

 

Ian Atkinson, CCG, clarified that it was not the case that the CCG were putting significant pressure on the TRFT around wholly owned subsidiary.