There were no declarations made at the meeting.

RESOLVED:  That the Minutes of the Meeting held on 9 October 2019 were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Report of the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership.

Helen Riley, the STP Senior Responsible Officer and Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Families and Communities; Tilly Flanagan, Head of Child Health and Wellbeing; and Mary Barlow, Lead Nurse for North Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) - Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) attended the meeting.

The report detailed the progress on the Maternity Transformation Plan (MTP) and provided an update on priorities agreed for the STP Children and Young People Programme.  The Staffordshire Maternity Transformation Board and Plan was originally written in 2016 and had benefited from additional resources from NHS England in the form of Tranche one funding of £390,000 and tranche two funding of £679,000. 

There were five key priorities which sat beneath the Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent MTP:

·         Enhanced quality and safety of women and new-borns

·         Authentic engagement with women and their families

·         Reconfiguration of maternity services.

·         Improved health and wellbeing of women and their new-born’s

·         Increased access to perinatal mental health services

It was reported that the Children and Young Peoples Programme had, to date, not received the same level of support afforded to other STP programmes and had been set up later than the others.  It was also the only workstream that dealt with a cohort based on age.  Great effort had been made to prevent duplication with the other workstreams such as mental health which cut across many services and work areas.  The recent publication of the NHS 10 Year plan which related to Maternity, Children and Young People, had been welcomed and had led to a greater impetus to build on the groundwork developed to date and maximise future funding and wider opportunities.  It was reported that the MTP had been modified to ensure that the national priorities were picked up locally. The intent was to develop stronger integrated working across the whole system to improve outcomes.

Members felt that the MTP could be reported further through its links with the Early Years Board and information cascaded down to the local Family Improvement Boards.  This could help to inform local areas of work and delivery plans.

There had been significant progress made against the plan, which had been complicated by Stoke on Trent City Council currently focusing its resource and efforts in to improving its Children’s Social Care services following its recent OFSTED report.

A Member felt that local services had reduced in recent years and gave the example of reduced health visitor numbers and asked how, given the financial constraints, the improvement programme could be delivered.  It was acknowledged that funding had changed and the delivery of some services was being looked at in different ways.  For instance, a recent pilot of a telephone triage system in the Health Visitor Service, had found that a large proportion of telephone calls to midwives were to make appointments or for information.  This could be provided by junior staff or via digital information thus free up time of more qualified health professional staff.

Following a question on Children with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 33.

Report of the Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

The Committee had requested that the MPFT attend the meeting to provide information on the creation of the Trust following the merger between Staffordshire and  Stoke on Trent Partnership NHS Trust (SSOTP) and South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (SSSFT) in June 2018.

Neil Carr, Chief Executive Officer MPFT; Liz Lockett, Executive Director for Quality and Clinical Performance and Clare Neill, Director of Communications attended the meeting to present the report and answer questions.

The Committee was informed that the main issue had been the Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection report on SSOTP prior to the merger.  The CQC had recently returned to reinspect and the new trust had received a ‘Good’ overall rating with four areas rated good and one requiring improvement.  The area requiring improvement, involved the triage system at the Haywood Hospital site and supervision in some parts or the organisation.  Members were informed that work had taken place across the whole of the organisation to develop a 1:1 supervision routine and this was now becoming embedded.  The Triage issue at Haywood Hospital had been as a result of staff not understanding the process and the need for recording timings.  This had now been addressed.

When asked if the financial position of the Trust had improved, the Committee were informed that it had and there were now more opportunities to change systems and manage finance more effectively.

Following the recent closure of the George Bryan Centre West Wing, due to fire damage, it had been considered that the East Wing had been too isolated to continue to operate and services had been temporarily moved into the community.  There was a conversation /engagement taking place on the future model of provision for these services.  The feedback from the engagement exercise so far included transport issues for both patients and family.  It was reported that there were adequate numbers of beds available, but they may not be in convenient locations.  More work was taking place into increasing community support to prevent hospital admissions.

When the Trust was merged, four operating arms were established to ensure that the organisation could respond to specific challenges.  These were: Children and families; Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent; Specialist: Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin.  Services were monitored from the centre, but the structure meant that there was flexibility to respond to issues either locally or from one of the groups.  As the Primary Care Networks develop, groupings in these teams should also allow closer partnership working and reduce the risk of silos.

It was hoped that increased partnership working would lead to better management of long-term health conditions and merging the trusts had enabled better communication.  An example was given of a pilot project into pain management which had seen teams working closer together, with mental health professionals having an input and helping to reduce the side effects of long-term pain such as depression and opioid addiction. 

Following a question on financial initiatives and the impact on client care and staffing, Members  ...  view the full minutes text for item 34.

Report of the Scrutiny and Support Manager.

The Scrutiny Support Manager informed the Committee that the next formal meeting of the Committee was 2 December 2019. The Healthwatch report which was due to be considered at that meeting had been deferred to a later date. 

A special workshop had been arranged for 8 November 2019 at 10am to consider the CCG Long Term Plan.

RESOLVED:  That the report be received.