Agenda and minutes

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 4 April 2013

The minutes of the meeting on 4 April 2013 were agreed as a correct record.

To provide an opportunity for Members and Officers to declare any disclosable pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests in any item on the agenda.

There were no declarations of interest

There were no declarations of party whip

There were no members of the public wishing to address the Committee

To examine the Quality Accounts for 2012/13 of the Mid Cheshire NHS Hospital Trust.

The Group considered the draft quality accounts of Mid Cheshire NHS Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for 2012/13. Julie Smith, Director of Nursing and Quality at Mid Cheshire presented the quality accounts and highlighted some of the key achievements and challenges that Mid Cheshire had faced during 2012/13.

The Committee asked questions and the following points were made:

·         One of the main challenges for Mid Cheshire had been the inability to recruit enough nurses. There had been 80 vacancies at one time but a new robust recruitment and retention programme had helped to reduce the vacancies to seven. Nurses from oversees had to be recruited due to the low availability of nurses in the local area.

·         The Trust hadn’t met the targets set for reducing smoking during pregnancy or breast feeding but had been working with Public Health to decrease smoking rates and increase the number of new mothers breast feeding.

·         The Trust had reviewed the Francis Report into Mid Staffordshire Hospitals failings and used some of the recommendations to help focus its own efforts to make improvements.

·         The Committee praised the quality of the accounts from an In Patient perspective but was concerned that no mention of Out Patient statistics such as waiting times and care quality had been included in the accounts.

·         The number of people who had not received an operation within 28 dates of an original date being cancelled was 10.83% above target and equated to 70 patients.

·         The biggest contributor to incidents in hospital was falls and there were a variety of reasons for why patients fell. Julie Smith assured the Committee that this was not caused by low care quality due to under staffing of nurses. The Committee wanted to see statistics for falls and an action plan to tackle them included in the accounts.

·         There was an issue with the delay between patients being discharged and receiving their prescriptions. Investment in ward based Pharmacies had helped to reduce the issue but more could be done. One contributing factor was patients wanting to leave the hospital as soon as possible after being discharged but delays also came from doctors not writing prescriptions in a timely manner.

·         The Committee suggested it would be useful to include actual number of patients in statistics and not just percentages to provide greater context about the number of people affected.

·         Julie Smith anticipated that the biggest challenges for the Trust in 2013/14 would be: dealing with staff shortages; reducing mortality rates; and reducing smoking during pregnancy and increasing breast feeding.

RESOLVED:

(a)  That Julie Smith be thanked for attending the meeting.         

(b)  That the Chairman of the Committee write a letter to the Mid Cheshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust to provide feedback on its Quality Accounts for 2012/13 to be included in the final version of the Quality Accounts.

To examine the first draft of the Quality Accounts for 2012/13 of the East Cheshire NHS Trust and provide comments to be included within the final draft.

The Committee considered the draft Quality Accounts for East Cheshire NHS Trust for 2012/13. Kath Senior, Director of Nursing, Performance & Quality at East Cheshire presented an overview of the accounts by highlighting some of the quality improvements during 2012/13 and identifying the priorities for quality improvement in 2013/14.

The Committee asked questions and the following points were made:

·         The Trust wanted to assist in intervention and prevention to avoid people having to go to hospital which would help to reduce the demand on services.

·         Staff were encouraged to report near misses as well as incidents so that the Trust could learn from them.

·         Falls in hospital had been reduced however it had not been reduced as far as the Trust had targeted at the beginning of 2012/13.

·         Fewer patients were scheduled to have operations during December because people did not want to have them before Christmas and more staff took annual leave during December. That had an effect on the number of operations cancelled which made the figures appear favourable.

·         The Trust needed to improve the way patients were scheduled for operations to decrease the number of cancelled operations.

·         Availability of Out Patient services after 5:00pm should be extended to increase convenience for patients who preferred evening appointments.

·         The Committee was pleased with the aspirations for improvements to dementia diagnosis and care. It was considered necessary to be aware of a patient’s other conditions or health issues in addition to their dementia to ensure they were not overlooked.

·         The Trust had created supervisory posts in the nursing teams to coordinate nurses and take responsibility for performance and care quality.

RESOLVED:

(a)  That Kath Senior be thanked for attending the meeting.        

(b)  That the Chairman of the Committee write a letter to the East Cheshire NHS Trust to provide feedback on its Quality Accounts for 2012/13 to be included in the final version of the Quality Accounts.

The Committee considered its work programme. There were no alterations to the work programme suggested.

RESOLVED – That the work programme be noted

To receive an update on the Health and Wellbeing Board.

The Councillor J Clowes updated the Committee on the Health and Wellbeing Board. The Board had held the first public meeting on 30 April 2013. Councillor J Clowes had been appointed as the Chairman of the Board and Dr Paul Bowen was appointed Vice Chairman. The Board had also considered items including:

·         Presentation from North West Ambulance Service,

·         Presentation on the Cheshire East Local Plan,

·         Report on Dementia, and

·         Report on NHS Health Checks.

RESOLVED – That the update be noted.