Meeting documents

Apologies were received from Nigel Shepherd.

To declare any personal and prejudicial interests.

There were no declarations of interest.

A representative from Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust will discuss the Trust’s response to the proposals within the BHiB consultation document, including potential impact on patients with mental health conditions, community services and transfers of care from acute services.

Contributor:

Ros Alstead, Director of Nursing and Clinical Standards, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.

The Chairman introduced Julie Waldron, Chief Executive, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and Ros Alstead, Director of Nursing and Clinical Standards, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.  Ms Waldron started by explaining that due to the change in the geographical scope of the Trust and its acquisition of community health services in Oxfordshire, the Trust renamed itself and is now known as the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and offers a range of mental health services over a large geographical area, encompassing Wiltshire, Berkshire as well as in Buckinghamshire.  In Bucks, children’s mental health services also includes speech and language services.

The Chairman asked what involvement the Trust has had in the Better Healthcare in Bucks consultation document (BHiB).  Ms Waldron explained that the Trust has had no involvement in producing the BHiB document.  At the Healthy Bucks Leaders Group meetings, there has been talk about the work being carried out in relation to the re-configuration of services.  Ms Waldron expressed disappointment over potential missed opportunities as a result of not involving the Trust in the development of the proposals outlined in the consultation document.

Ms Alstead went on to say that, on the positive side, the proposals appear to focus on specialist services in Acute Hospitals and the proposals for this and the management of beds appear to be rational.  Ms Alstead provided Members with some statistical information.  The population of Buckinghamshire is around 550,000 people of which around 100,000 will experience some mental health issue (from a mild form to more severe forms).  Around 90% of these people will require primary care services.  There is no mention of mental wellbeing in the consultation document.  The vision is to improve health for the residents of Buckinghamshire and Ms Alstead explained that she would have expected to see a strategy which focused on Integrated Mental and Physical Health Care as the way forward but the focus appears to be on Hospital services.

Ms Alstead explained that there is a lot of evidence which points towards the right model of care where service gaps have been identified and new service arrangements delivered.  She went on to say that City Hospital in Birmingham has introduced a RAID (Rapid Assessment Interface and Discharge) service which has recently won a prestigious Health Service Journal award for best innovation in mental health.  It has not only resulted in better patient care but it has avoided unnecessary admissions onto already busy medical wards, and reduced length of stay and mental health morbidity in acute hospitals.

Ms Alstead said that she would have liked to have seen this sort of service delivery outlined in the consultation document and felt that the document was light on integrated services information as Bucks Hospitals provide community based services and these will need to be expanded alongside primary care if the bed base in general Hospitals is to reduce.

During discussion, Members asked the following questions and made the following comments.

• A Member said that at a recent meeting they  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

A representative from the Save our Hospital Services Group will attend the meeting to share the Group’s views on the proposals within the consultation document.

Contributor:  Mr John Barlow, Save our Hospital Services Group

The Chairman welcomed Mr John Barlow, representing Save Our Hospital Services, to the meeting.  Mr Barlow was joined by Mr Steve Cohen (Chairman of the SOHS Group), Ms Sue Hynard (attending on behalf of Steve Baker MP) and Ms Frances Alexander.

Mr Barlow started by explaining that SOHS is a non-political cross party group.  He took Members through his presentation and made the following main points.

• SOHS is not against change but it wants to halt the dilution of local services and improve the hospital facilities at Wycombe.
• SOHS wants to hold the health authority to account and wants to ensure the public is fully engaged in the consultation process and the final outcomes reflect public demands.
• SOHS views the County Councillors as the best route to holding the health authority to account and the new health Bill will give local authorities the opportunity to increase their powers.
• SOHS wants Wycombe to remain as an Acute Hospital which will treat patients with a wide range of ailments (from a broken finger to more serious stroke conditions).
• Representatives from SOHS met members of the PCT and were left feeling that the current consultation is a sales pitch rather than a public consultation.  SOHS believes this is a breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008.
• Wycombe Hospital’s A&E department has been downgraded once and it is about to be downgraded again.
• 30,000 patients who attend A&E are signposted elsewhere - 20,000 of these are expected to be seen by their local GP (66%).  SOHS is concerned about GP capacity to see these extra patients as it amounts to an additional 40 GP sessions per week to see 20,000 patients.
• The PCT submits its figures to the National Clinical Assessment Team.  The NCAT does not check the figures and accepts them as local knowledge.
• BHiB does nothing to reduce Health Inequalities.
• Waiting times have increased by 169% and if there is a reduction of beds at Wycombe Hospital, this will only make the situation worse.
• The vision is to treat more people in the community but there needs to be a cost/benefit analysis to ascertain the viability of this.
• Quantifiable improvements are not included in the document and SOHS want the HOSC to monitor the improvements in future.
• There is a lack of sound logic that has been applied to the consultation document.
• SOHS feels that BHiB is well meaning but it fails to analyse the affects on public, patients and County Council budgets.
• Whilst the consultation document outlines 7 options, 6 of them can be dismissed very quickly which leaves only one viable option.  SOHS believes that some options have not been explained in enough detail.

During discussion, the following comments were made and questions asked.

·        The Chairman asked whether SOHS had looked at other parts of the Country to see what they were doing.   Mr Barlow responded by saying that the organisation has looked at guidance produced by the independent proposal review which highlights where  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

The next meeting of the working group will take place on Friday 16 March 2012, 10.00am, Mezzanine 3, County Hall, Aylesbury.

The next meeting is due to take place on Friday 16 March at 9.30am in Mezzanine Room 3, County Hall, Aylesbury.

Future meetings

Tuesday 20 March at 2.30pm

Tuesday 27 March at 2pm