Agenda and minutes

The Panel noted the apologies of Councillors Parnell, Spicer and White.

The Panel deferred the appointment of vice-chair of the Panel to a future meeting.

The Panel noted that Councillor Bogle was an appointed representative of the Council as a Governor of the University Hospital Southampton NHS foundation Trust.

To approve and sign as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 15 May 2014 and to deal with any matters arising, attached.

RESOLVED: that the minutes for the Panel meeting on 15 May 2014 be approved and signed as a correct record.

Report of the Independent Chair of the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board detailing the Board’s Draft Annual report for Comment, attached.

The Panel noted the report of the Independent Chair of the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board detailing the Board’s Draft Annual report.

With the permission of the Chair, Mr Joe Hannigan from the Fairness Commission, addressed the meeting.

The Panel discussed the relevance of the comparator set used within the report seeking to understand why the report indicated that the City’s performance was different from its geographical neighbours.  It was noted that the City did compare favourably to areas that shared the City’s economic and demographic circumstance.  The Panel noted that there was not one unique factor that could be singled out as the identifier for the City’s performance.

It was explained that the Board had undergone significant change over the course of the municipal year including the appointment of a new Chair and a review of the membership.  The Panel was assured that attendance at meetings was extremely good and that there was significant challenge to the reports presented to Board members.

Report of the Independent Chair of the Southampton Safeguarding Adults Board detailing the annual report, attached.

The Panel considered the report of the Independent Chair of the Southampton Safeguarding Adults Board detailing the annual report.

The Panel noted that the Board had undergone changes over the course of the year including the appointment of a new Chair of the Board.  The Panel noted that the principal aim of the Board is to promote the wellbeing and protect ‘adults at risk’ of harm in its area. 

The Board’s Independent Chair detailed how the City had performed against the Key Performance Indicators set for 2013-2014. The Panel were informed that the Southampton Safeguarding Adults Board (SSAB) will conduct audits to better understand why the conversion rate, for alert to referral rates, is lower than national comparator and explained that the Board would want to show an increase in the conversion rate by 2014-15. 

The Panel were briefed on how the City had performed against targets to tackle abuse in the City, whether it be financial abuse, physical abuse or through neglect.  It was explained to the Panel the Importance for the SSAB to understand why abuse within residential care has decreased and share locally and nationally examples of good practice.  The meeting was informed that the SSAB measured its success against data and learned that the Board employ a number of different and innovative methods to collect as much data as possible to drive evidenced based improvement in safeguarding practice.

RESOLVED

(i)  to encourage a better understanding amongst Councillors of Adult Safeguarding matters; and

(ii)  that the Southampton Safeguarding Adults Board’s strategic action plan be brought to the Panel at an appropriate meeting in 2015.

Report of the Director of People detailing key performance information concerning the previous financial year along with important strategic and policy developments, attached.

The Panel noted the report of the Director, People detailing key performance information concerning the previous financial year along with important strategic and policy developments.

It was noted that there were delays in producing the Account for 2012/13 which has resulted in some similarities with the 2013/14 report.

The Panel acknowledged that there was cross party support for transforming the service and sought to understand the reasoning for the delays.  It was explained that there had been some resistance to the potential changes by clients and employees, partly because of the high quality of services currently provided. 

Report of the Director of Quality and Integration detailing an overview, by exception, of key quality of care issues for the main health and care provider organisations, including nursing homes in Southampton, attached.

The Panel consideredthe report of the Director of Quality and Integration detailing an overview, by exception, of key quality of care issues for the main health and care provider organisations, including nursing homes in Southampton.

Mr Joe Hannigan from the Fairness Commission, was present and with the consent of the Chair addressed the meeting.

The Panel noted the drive to ensure quality within the health system set out in the report including;

• the steps taken to tackle the high number of blood infections caused by MRSA at the University Hospital Southampton outlined within the report and detailed at the meeting;
• steps to eradicate mixed sex accommodation;
• the Care Quality Commission’s new methodology for undertaking reviews; and
• that Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust were continuing to make progress against compliance issues identified at Antelope House.

The report detailed the slow improvement in the quality of care provided by nursing homes within Southampton.  The Panel discussed how the Council had reacted to the 5 homes suspended from placement in the winter of 2013. It was noted that the role of the Integrated Commissioning Unit was to advise and suggest actions that would result in improvement rather than to take control of the homes.  The Panel noted that the potentially frail nature of some residents often meant that it was not practical to decant residents from their homes if it failed to meet required standards.

The meeting explored the quality of advice available for individuals regarding accessing the correct benefits and allowances and raised concerns that whistle blowers would not be adequately protected and may become blacklisted from alternative employment.  It was explained that the Council was undertaking a tender process for Domiciliary Care Provision and that staffing matters, and compliance with standards, would form an important part of the tender process.

RESOLVEDthat

(i)  the Panel notes the areas of quality concern and the actions in place,

(ii)  the Panel supports the assurance processes outlined for the monitoring of the Domiciliary Care contract

Report of the Chief Executive for University Hospital Southampton providing the Panel with an overview of last year’s performance and latest position against the Emergency Department accident and emergency targets, attached.

The Panel considered the report of the Chief Executive for University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust providing the Panel with an overview of last year’s performance and latest position against the Emergency Department accident and emergency targets.

The Panel noted that the Hospital’s performance against the target set for the emergency department had continued to be erratic.  It was noted that the Hospital continued to have difficulties discharging patients that required care packages and assessments.  It was explained that without an adequate flow of patients through the system then it became difficult to process patients and meet performance targets.  The Trust’s Chief Executive stated that this had not affected the Hospitals ability to deal with major trauma incidents and that customer satisfaction of the department was generally very high.

It was explained at the meeting that it was hoped that new working practices would help to alleviate the current problems relating to discharging patients.  It was noted that the Hospital proposed to introduce a system of:

• Trusted Assessment that would allow specially trained hospital staff to assess the needs of patients prior to discharge without the requirement to have a social services staff member present; and
• Discharge to Assess – which would enable a full assessment of a patients needs outside of the emergency department and therefore free beds up.

RESOLVEDthat, should the current measures not improve the Hospital’s performance against the accident and emergency waiting targets, the Panel would call a meeting and invite all the stakeholders to consider what actions need to be taken to improve the Hospital’s performance.