Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received form the Chair, Councillor Rosey Claymore, and Councillors M Greatorex and R Kingstone.  The Vice-Chair, Councillor D Maycock chaired the meeting.

The Vice-Chair welcomed the new members of the committee, Councillors, J Jones and S Smith and thanked the councillors who were no longer on the Committee, Councillors M Cook and T Jay, as a borough councillor member.

It was agreed to defer approval of the minutes of the meeting held on 12^th July 2022 until the next meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

The Vice-Chair highlighted to members the various communications circulated by Democratic Services regarding the services previously provided at the George Bryan Centre and that NHS England and the Integrated Care Board (ICB) had agreed to pause the Assurance Panel planned for September to allow further time to reflect on the feedback received from stakeholders.

To receive an update from the Midlands Partnership Foundation Trust’s Head of Primary Care Development & MH Programme Lead (South Staffordshire)

The Vice-Chair welcomed the Assistant Director, Partnerships Jo Sands, Mr Upkar Jheeta, the Midlands Partnership Foundation Trust’s (MPFT) Head of Primary Care Development & MH Programme Lead (South Staffordshire) and Susan Unwin (Consultant Nurse and Approved Clinician at MPFT) to the meeting.  The representative from MPFT took the Committee through a presentation, and video, which covered:

1.    Current configuration of adult mental health services

2.    The Model of the Community Mental Health Framework

3.    Crisis Alternatives; to provide alternatives to inpatient facilities, including a Crisis Café and in conjunction with that a broader crisis response through the voluntary sector to support patients in their own homes.

4.    Core 24, which is co-located with Accident & Emergency services

5.    Winter discharge and Hospital avoidance, to support patients leaving hospital or prevent an admission to hospital, where interventions include deep cleaning, carrying out repairs, supporting with utilities and food, which had been delivered in partnership with voluntary organisations and the hospital avoidance service was supplemented with a wellbeing adviser and housing adviser

6.    Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT), where patients can refer themselves and the service is delivered with a range of partner organisations, and includes an integrated bereavement service.

7.    Additional mental health developments, including encouraging physical healthchecks.

The Committee commented and sought clarifications in the following areas:

·         Whether the services were facing workforce challenges and the impact of that on these services and how this was being addressed, where it was reported that the way the services were being delivered involved working with the voluntary sector.  It was reported that nationally there was a requirement to ring fence 20% of the investment to the voluntary sector however, MPFT had decided to significantly increase the proportion of activities delivered by the voluntary sector and the total contract value to the voluntary sector was in excess of £2.5million and this had enabled MPFT to bring their vacancy rate down from 27% to 13% and MPFT were continually looking at new contemporary workforce to help deliver the transformation and MPFT were working closely with Keele University regarding clinical associate psychologists to address areas of national shortages in occupations.

·         The nature of the 4 week waiting time standard and whether the standard from a patient’s referral to the service to the completion of a trusted assessment and the start of an intervention was a national standard and whether MPFT aspired to have a shorter period.  The Head of Primary Care Development reported that it was a national standard and that to determine whether or not this target was being achieved required MPFT to have the correct metrics in place to measure these and they were required to have those metrics in place by the end of this financial year.  Following that MPFT it would be MPFT’s aspiration to do better than that and to deliver interventions as quickly as possible, and early interventions may be more holistic interventions.

·         Whether evidence of the improvements in the service’s performance could be shared, where it  ...  view the full minutes text for item 26.

(Report of the Portfolio Holder for Voluntary Sector, Town centre, Evening economy and Community Safety)

The Chair welcomed Councillor Martin Summers, the Portfolio Holder for Voluntary Sector, Town Centre, Evening Economy and Community Safety and the Ms Jo Sands the Assistant Director, Partnerships to the meeting.  The Report of the Portfolio Holder provided the first of two biannual safeguarding updates to the Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee.  The report provided an overview of the safeguarding processes and procedures in place to discharge the Council’s legal duty to safeguard children and adults with care and support needs from abuse and neglect.

The Committee sought and received clarifications on:

·         The data in the graphs on referrals and whether the current year’s figures seemed to reflect the data from pre-pandemic years which appeared to be the case.

·         Whether the four different levels of safeguarding training were nationally set and/or mandatory and whether it was the Council who had determined that all staff should have Level 1 Safeguarding Training.  The Assistant Director reported that through the Council’s work with the Safeguarding Board the Council was required to identify the roles which require further in depth safeguarding training and the level of that training.

·         Whether the suicide prevention training was mandatory for any staff, where it was reported that teams were identified and relevant staff were encouraged to attend, and it was considered to be a difficult training to make mandatory.  The Committee debated whether it would be appropriate for public facing staff roles to be more aware of suicide prevention and training related to this.  It was also reported that at times matters would be escalated by staff and potentially lead to a safe and well check.

·         Clarification of the most common type of modern slavery in Staffordshire was sought, where the Assistant Director reported that she would report back on that matter.

RESOLVED that the Committee recommend to Cabinet that it consider whether all public facing staff should complete suicide prevention / awareness training.

(Moved by Councillor D Maycock and seconded by County Councillor T Jay)

RESOLVED that the Report be endorsed.

(Moved by Councillor D Maycock and seconded by County Councillor T Jay)

The Committee thanked the Portfolio Holder and the Assistant Director, Partnerships for their Report and attendance and they then left the meeting.

(Update on responses to the Reports of the Health & Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee)

The Chair reported that he had attended Cabinet to present the Committee’s recommendations on the Housing Strategy item which were received with quarterly reporting of relevant metrics being agreed.  The target was to bring the first quarterly report to the January 2023 meeting.

(Discussion item)

The Vice-Chair reported that at the Council meeting on 19^th July 2022, a petition regarding the castle grounds toilets was received.  At that Council meeting it was agreed:

·         that the Health & Wellbeing Scrutiny committee would take on the issues included in the petition specific to the castle grounds

·         that the Health & Wellbeing Scrutiny committee would conduct a wider review of public toilet provision in Tamworth; and

·         that recommendations be made to Cabinet at an appropriate time to be included in this year’s budget cycle

The Vice-Chair reported that further details had been sought in respect of the opening hours of the Castle Grounds toilets and the Vice-Chair sought nominations to form a working group. 

It was agreed that a working group be formed of:

Councillor R Claymore

Councillor D Maycock

Councillor J Wadrup

(To receive the Digests from Staffordshire County Council’s Health and Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee and an update from County Councillor T Jay)

County Councillor T Jay updated the Committee on the recent Staffordshire County Health & Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee meetings which considered workforce issues, hospital waiting times and work to bring these down, and work by the Integrated Care Board.

Please see the link to the Forward Plan:

http://democracy.tamworth.gov.uk/mgListPlans.aspx?RPId=120&RD=0&bcr=1

The Chair highlighted that this Committee had not received an update on Recovery & Reset for some time and suggested that an update be brought to this Committee.

To consider items for Health & Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee Work Plan

The Committee considered its work plan, and updated it as follows:

Health & Wellbeing Scrutiny Work Plan