Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence had been received from Councillor Tom Papworth, Councillor William Huntington-Thresher, Councillor Julian Grainger, Councillor Catherine Rideout, Mr Keith Marshall and Mrs Leslie Marks.

The Chairman welcomed Councillor Diane Smith and Mrs Patricia Choppin to the meeting.

Councillor Diane Smith declared an interest as the LBB representative on the Bromley Healthcare Council of Governors.

To approve the Terms of Reference for the Health Scrutiny Sub-Committee

The Sub-Committee noted the draft term of reference that had been circulated.  The Chairman stressed that it was not the role of the Sub-Committee to review the internal management of the Trust.  The remit of the Sub-Committee extended to the provision of services – quality and capacity issues.

The Chairman expressed concern regarding the public questions that had been submitted as they related to the management of the Trust.  In future questions that did not relate to service provision would not be forwarded to the Trust for response.

In reviewing the Terms of Reference the Sub-Committee noted that they may evolve overtime.

RESOLVED that the Terms of Reference of the Health Sub-Committee be approved.

Dr Chris Streather, Chief Executive, South London Healthcare NHS Trust, to attend the meeting and provide the Sub-Committee with an update.

To include questions from Councillors and Members of the Public to South London Healthcare NHS Trust, received in writing by the Democratic Services Team by 5pm on 13^th July 2011.

Dr Chris Streather, Chief Executive, South London Healthcare NHS Trust (SLHT), attended the meeting and provided the Sub-Committee with an update on the Trust following recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections.  Dr Streather highlighted that the Trust had undergone three CQC inspections in the past year; this had not been entirely unexpected as the Trust had not declared compliance on all the targets.  The compliance review in September 2010 had identified some improvements to be made.  The unannounced inspection had found staff to be open and honest about the challenges they faced.  The CQC inspection in March 2011 found that the Trust met the basic standards for dignity and nutrition.  Some issues were identified with the “red tray” system for nutrition and these issues had been taken on board and the Trust was working to address them.  In April 2011, CQC identified that good progress had been made in improving maternity services.  The need to increase the midwife to patient ratio was a long-term challenge and one that was being faced by acute trusts across London.  Increasing early access to care was also an issue to be addressed and action needed to be taken to address this.

In terms of the issues already addressed since the September 2010 CQC inspection, following the implementation of the new on-line system for reporting incidents, the number of incidents recorded increased.  This was not unexpected as the new on-line system meant that data was captured in a more accurate way.

Work was ongoing to improve the process of ensuring staff working in high risk areas had the necessary CRB checks as well as highlighting the importance of ensuring medicines were kept securely.  In September 2010, the Inspectors had found that some medical notes had been kept in potentially publically assessable areas on wards, following the inspection there had been a Trust-wide awareness campaign to highlight the importance of ensuring confidentiality of patient records was maintained.

Dr Streather reported that over the past 12 months significant improvements in mortality rates had been made and it appeared that the figure was improving every three months.  In terms of maternity services, the Trust now had high quality midwifery and medical leadership in place.  The number of serious incidents had halved in the past 12 months and the number of caesarean sections preformed had also been reduced.  Dr Streather reported that in its first three months of operation the hyper acute stroke unit had admitted 103 patients and the feedback received from a number of the patients and their families had been very positive.

In terms of the future, Dr Streather reported that the Trust would be required to save £50 million a year for the next three years and this was against a backdrop of the need to increase quality, innovation and productivity.  Referring to waiting times, Dr Streather acknowledged that there were still significant problems with the waiting times for elective pathways.  In order to address these, the Trust needed to reduce blockages in the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.