Agenda item

Report of Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

Clare Trenchard, Associate Director for Communications provided an update report on Developing Integrated Care Hubs in the context of changes to NHS capital arrangements.

The Committee were reminded that North Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Clinical Commissioning Groups undertook a 14-week public consultation between December 2018 and March 2019 which informed a decision-making business case, which resulted in the plan to introduce 4 Integrated Care Hubs (ICH) across North Staffordshire.

These hubs would be developed at:

1)   Leek Moorlands District Hospital

2)   Bradwell Hospital

3)   Haywood Hospital

4)   Longton

The Health and Care Overview & Scrutiny Committee appointed an Integrated Care Hubs Working Group to be Chaired by Councillor Richard Cox.

The Committee were informed that since the Decision-making business case was approved national changes to the Capital Departmental Expenditure Limit had resulted in NHS England setting capital spending limits for Foundation Trusts which therefore meant that Midlands Partnership Foundation Trust (MPFT) were no longer able to access cash reserves which were held for the purpose of implementing the Hubs.

It was reported that NHS England’s position was that a strategic outline case would need to be developed for each hub in order to bid for money. MPFT had agreed to develop a strategic outline case for each proposed ICH.

Richard Cox, as Chairman of the Integrated Care Hub Working Group advised that the Group had undertaken site visits at the proposed sites and highlighted the individual challenges at each site. He also highlighted the transport issues of each site and expressed concern that, due to the funding change, one of the sites would not be delivered.

The Committee noted the following comments and responses to questions:

·         There was the potential to develop more than one hub at a time.

·         The criteria to determine the order in which each site would be developed was still to be determined.

·         MPFT was still committed to all 4 sites.

·         MPFT would have a better understanding of the timescales in June 2023.

·         The strategic outline case was a technical document required by NHS England. The document would be shared with the Working Group in due course.

·         The Working Group included District and Borough Councils from Staffordshire Moorlands and Newcastle Under Lyme who attended the site visits and the briefing meetings.

The Chairman advised that it was not the role of the Integrated Care Hub Working Group to be involved in prioritising services, he went on to say that the national changes resulting in capital limits for foundation trusts were disappointing and disadvantaged Staffordshire residents. The Committee agreed to write to NHS England to express its disappointment and highlight that any ongoing projects should be allowed to continue.

Resolved – That (a) the update provided on the implementation of the clinical commissioning groups decision making business case that proposed a model of integrated care hubs in North Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent be received.

(b) a letter be sent from the Committee to NHS England to express its disappointment in the national changes to the Capital Departmental Expenditure Limit resulting in NHS England setting capital spending limits for Foundation Trusts and that any ongoing projects should be allowed to continue.