Agenda and minutes

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

Councillors D Bailey, S Edgar, D Mahon all declared a non pecuniary interest as members of the local Fire Authority.

To provide an opportunity for Members to declare the existence of a party whip in relation to any item on the Agenda

There were no declarations of party whip

The Chairman began the meeting with a statement about the purpose of the review and the reasons for the meeting. She emphasised that this exercise was not simply to review the role that North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust played in the performance of ambulance services in Cheshire East but to look at the whole health and care system and consider how each stakeholder impacted on it and could contribute to making improvements. She explained that the session would be a fact finding exercise for the Committee to gather information and the views of stakeholders before discussing what had been heard prior to developing conclusions and recommendations. She suggested that due to the schedule for the meeting it was likely that it would need to be adjourned to be concluded on another date.

A total period of 15 minutes is allocated for members of the public to make a statement(s) on any matter that falls within the remit of the Committee.

Individual members of the public may speak for up to 5 minutes, but the Chairman will decide how the period of time allocated for public speaking will be apportioned, where there are a number of speakers.

Note: in order for officers to undertake and background research, it would be helpful if members of the public notified the Scrutiny Officer listed at the foot of the Agenda at least one working day before the meeting with brief details of the matter to be covered.

Rob Selby and Nick Stafford attended the meeting to speak about their roles as Cheshire representatives on the North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust Governing Board. They were two of four Public Governors representing Cheshire having been elected by the Cheshire membership of the Trust. They provided an explanation of their role as governors being representatives of local people to hold the Trust’s Board to account as required in order for the Trust to obtain Foundation Status.

Councillor Dorothy Flude spoke in support of this review and referred to the Cheshire County Council scrutiny review into Community First Responders which took place in 2008. She suggested that Community First Responders were essential to ensuring a fast response in small communities and encouraged the growth of schemes. She also suggested that the current situation whereby Community First Responders were unable to respond to cases involving children needed to be addressed and that the Blue Light Collaboration needed to be taken into account.

Councillor Janet Clowes spoke on behalf of the Council’s Cabinet to support the review and  encouraged everyone involved to take the opportunity to look ahead as well as look back, particularly in relation to the role ambulance services play in local transformation agendas which were being developed across the Cheshire and Merseyside footprint.

To receive reports, presentations and evidence from service providers, commissioners and other stakeholders, to gather information to assess the ability of current services to meet the needs of Cheshire East and consider recommendations for changes to improve outcomes in the future.

(schedule for the meeting attached)

Each stakeholder was requested in turn to provide information about the role they played in the commissioning and provision of ambulance services, what they thought challenges were and what might be done to make improvements. During each section Committee members asked questions and various stakeholders provided additional comments.

Caroline O’Brien, Chief Executive of Cheshire East Healthwatch, provided a brief summary of feedback that they had received from patients regarding their experience of services received from North West Ambulance Services NHS Trust (NWAS).

Sarah Falkner, Director of Quality for NWAS, provided a presentation about the various services which NWAS provided, performance figures for services in Cheshire East and across the Region, factors effecting performance and initiatives being used to maintain and improve response times and outcomes for patients. David Kitchin (Interim Deputy Director of Operations), Michael Moore (Sector Manager), Matt Dunn (Consultant Paramedic), and Julie Treharne (Head of Communications) all supported the presentation providing information and answering questions about various parts of NWAS services.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:50 and reconvened at 12:05.

Jerry Hawker, Chief Executive of NHS Eastern Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), led a presentation from the CCGs about how ambulance services were commissioned, why performance of service differed between locations within the region, what the future challenges were and outlines some initiatives that they were developing with NWAS, acute trusts, community and primary care service providers and Cheshire East Council. Tracy Parker-Priest, Director of Operations and System Manager at NHS South Cheshire CCG, also contributed on behalf of South Cheshire and Allan Jude, Chief Executive of NHS Blackpool CCG, provided a regional commissioning perspective as lead commissioner for ambulance services in the North West.

Diane Hutter, Trustlink Manager at Peaks and Plains Housing Trust, and Ela Gruse, Retirement Living Manager at Wulvern Housing, provided presentations about how their organisations worked with NWAS and other health and care providers and commissioners.

The meeting was adjourned at 13:45 for lunch and reconvened at 14:15.

Councillor J Clowes left the meeting.

Carl Hanson, Group Manager at Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service, provided an overview of the fire safety and education services that the Services provided and explained the various ways in which the Service worked with NWAS and the Police, particularly in relation to the Blue Light Collaboration. The Committee had received a written statement from Cheshire Police about their involvement in ambulance services and David Kitchin elaborated on their relationship.

Dr Heather Grimbaldeston, Director of Public Health, provided an overview of how Public Health supported the various initiatives previously mentioned around ambulance services.

Rob Walker, Commissioning Manager in Adult Social Care at Cheshire East Council, provided an overview of the views from various adult social care services about their interaction with ambulance services.

Jonathon O’Brien, Deputy Chief Operating Officer at Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (MCHFT), and Kath Senior, Director of Nursing, Performance and Quality at East Cheshire NHS Trust (ECT), provided presentations about Leighton Hospital and Macclesfield General Hospital’s Emergency Departments respectively and how they interacted  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.