To note attendances, including Officers, and any apologies for absence.

To also note that Cllr J. Teubler has replaced Cllr Rawlins as a member of the Joint Committee and that Councillor N. Siddiqi is the named substitute member for Manchester City Council.

The Committee noted that Councillor J Teubler had replaced Councillor Rawlins as a member for the Joint Committee and that Councillor N Siddiqi is the named substitute member for Manchester City Council. 

The Chair noted that since Councillor Teubler was not present at the meeting Councillor Siddiqi would be acting as a full voting member on behalf of Manchester City Council.

The Chair expressed regret that Trafford CCG had not sent a representative to the meeting due to their normal representative(s) being on annual leave.  Members agreed it was inconceivable that an alternative representative could not be found.  Members agreed to set the dates of future meetings at the start of the municipal year in order that all parties can ensure they are adequately represented.      

To receive and if so determined, to approve as a correct record, the minutes of the last meeting of the Joint Health Scrutiny Committee held on 27 January 2015. 

DECISION:

To approve the minutes of the meeting on 27 January 2015 as a correct record.

To note any declarations of interest.

The following personal interests were declared:

·         Councillor Lloyd declared a personal interest as an employee of the Stroke Association based at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust.

·         Councillor Bruer-Morris declared a personal interest as a practice nurse at a GP practice in Manchester.

Representatives from the NHS will be in attendance to provide an update to the Joint Committee on progress with the implementation of the New Deal for Trafford programme and an update on issues raised at the last meeting.

The Committee welcomed Jessica Williams from NHS England and Silas Nicholls from the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust (UHSM).  The Committee formally received the report.  The Chair noted that the report provided for the meeting contained lots of graphs and tables which were not always easy for a layperson to interpret.  He said that more detailed analysis would be helpful in future. 

Jessica Williams introduced herself, explaining that the role of NHS England was to hold the Clinical Commissioning Groups to account.  She said she could provide insight into the report, although she could not provide detailed analysis.  She explained that NHS England looked at this type of information on a weekly basis when the new Health Deal for Trafford was established in December 2013.  She said that Accident and Emergency (A&E) Attendances were higher than expected in year 2.  She noted that the performance figures for quarter 4 within the report were not comprehensive as the period ran from 1 January 2015 - 31 March 2015; however, UHSM was not expected to meet the 95% performance target in this quarter based on current data. 

Silas Nicholls introduced himself and explained the data provided for UHSM.  He said that in respect of A&E Attendances at UHSM in 2015, 85.3% of patients were seen within the four hour target in January, 91.4% in February, and 92.7% in March; which was a sustained improvement.  He said that it would have been difficult to achieve more due to the sheer volume of people attending over the winter months.  He said that there was a continued pressure of delayed transfer of care, in particular for patients from Trafford.  He said that over the previous week at UHSM approximately 20 patients no longer required hospital treatment but could not be discharged as they were waiting to be transferred elsewhere.  A member who was an ex board member of UHSM agreed there was a direct correlation between A&E performance and the volume of patients presenting at A&E.  Members agreed that improvements to community care were required to reduce the need for hospital admission.  The Chair stressed the importance of integrated care, noting that delayed discharge was a continued problem. 

The Chair noted that information on re-admission rates was requested at the last meeting of the Joint Health Scrutiny Committee but had not yet been received.  Silas Nicholls advised that re-admission rates at UHSM were broadly in line with national averages.  He said variations occurred where hospitals became specialised.  At UHSM general medical re-admissions had increased, particularly amongst frail and older patients.  He said UHSM was working to address this by expanding the current geriatrics service based in A&E, creating a 12 bed specialist frailty unit, and working closely with GPs to provide appropriate care packages.  He offered to share the plan with members, to which the Committee agreed. 

As UHSM specialised in respiratory medicines, in particular Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) this had also affected re-admission rates.  Silas  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.