Agenda item

3:50

Oral reports on activities since the last meeting in March will be presented by:

·         The Vice - Chairman of the Children & Young People Partnership Board;

·         The Chairman of the Adult Health & Social Care Partnership Board, Cllr Mrs Judith Heathcoat;

·         The Chairman of the Health Improvement Partnership Board, Cllr Mark Booty

The Board is asked to consider a report HWB11 on the future of the Adult Health & Social Care Partnership Board.

Action Required:    to

(a)   receive updates from each Partnership Board; and

(b)consider the recommendations contained in the report HWB11 with regard to the future of the Adult Health & Social Care Partnership Board.

Councillors Mark Booty and Mrs Judith Heathcoat and Lucy Butler each gave a brief oral progress report on recent activity of each of the Partnership Boards.

Health Improvement Board (HIB)

The Health Improvement Board had held three meetings since the last report to this Board. These were:

·         A closed meeting was held in May 2014 to discuss proposals for changes in housing related support. The meeting was attended by HIB members and the housing portfolio holders/officers from all the districts and the County Council. The proposals were now out to consultation with stakeholders and the HIB would receive a report at their September meeting on the next steps in the process;

·         At the May 2014 Board meeting there was a discussion on future priorities and a review of performance. The HIB now looks at performance at county level but also the best and worst outcomes. As a result of this greater understanding of variation across the county, many of the outcomes proposed for the year ahead would address equality issues which had been identified. For example, work was in progress to improve the uptake of NHS Health Checks across the county and also to ensure that there were no localities lagging behind the county average. It was agreed also at this meeting that the new Alcohol and Drugs Partnership would report to the Board as well as to the Safer Communities Partnership.

·         A joint workshop with the Children & Young People Partnership Board was held in July 2014to develop action plans for the Healthy Weight Strategy. The workshop was well attended and officers and councillors worked together on ideas for helping people maintain a healthy weight and prevent obesity. The action plan was due for discussion at the HIB in September.

Children & Young People Partnership Board (CYPPB)

Lucy Butler described the proposed changes to the Board which were currently under discussion to improve its effectiveness by clarifying its role, responsibilities and relationships with other Boards, with particular regard to the Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Board. The changes also linked in with comments made by the recent OFSTED inspection.

A workshop was held on 28 May 2014 to agree how to ensure the partnership arrangements overseeing the delivery of key outcomes for children and young people over the next 3 years were as effective as possible; and to secure clarity about the role of the of the CYPPB  within these arrangements. A number of proposals were made for change to the CYPPB, for recommendation to the Health & Wellbeing Board at its November meeting. These included:

·         that the Board be renamed the Children’s Trust, to reinforce its broader remit and strategic role in driving the delivery and improvement of services for children and young people;

·         Changes to be made to the working protocol between the Children’s Trust and the Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children’s Board (OSCB) to ensure clarity in responsibility and relationships; and

·         There should be one multi-agency Quality Assurance Group and Performance Management sub-group supporting both the Children’s Trust and the OSCB to avoid duplication and support shared learning/accountability that is responsible for performance reporting.

Older people’s Joint Management Group (OPJMG)

Cllr Mrs Judith Heathcoat reported on the role of the Older People’s Joint Management Group (OPJMG) which is to deliver the Older People’s Commissioning Strategies and to report progress against key outcomes within the Oxfordshire Health & Wellbeing Strategy. To that aim the OPJMG received an Older People’s Programme report, a performance report and a finance report on a bi – monthly basis. It had also been agreed that the OPJMG should hold overall responsibility for the implementation of the Better Care Fund Plan and the Older people’s Joint Commissioning Strategy.

At its 25 March 2014 meeting discussion focused on key areas which were off target, those being the delayed transfers of care, care home placements, dementia diagnosis rates and the numbers of people starting reablement, and actions being taken. Discussions on the performance and finance reports identified the level of demand as the main challenge that puts pressure on the whole system. The Group had asked for further analysis of the reasons for the rise in demand. The importance of primary care and engagement with GPs, the end of life project, how to improve the delivery of community services, and how to increase the numbers of people using reablement services was also discussed.

At its 22 May meeting, in addition to the key areas off target and on-going work around the work streams, integration between health and social care was discussed. The key to integration is integrating services from service users’ perspective and it was agreed that progress on integration be reported to the Joint Management Group regularly. The findings of the Integration Workshop held by the Older People’s Partnership Board on 3rd July were reported to its next meeting on 24th July.

The OPJMG approved the proposal to increase the level of incentive payments to home support providers for starting packages within 72 hours at weekends and to introduce incentive payments for care homes to make placements within 72 hours. The aim of the incentive was to ensure that when the patient was ready to be discharged at the weekend, they would not have to wait for Monday and a smoother working week would be achieved.

The Joint Management Group has proposed the revised priorities, targets and measures in the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy which has been considered earlier on this agenda. These will form the basis for future performance reporting to the Joint Management Group.

The Board also considered a report (HWB11) on the future of the Adult Health & Social Care Board.

In response to a request put forward by Jean Nunn-Price for a place on the OPJMG for Healthwatch Oxfordshire, John Jackson responded that primarily direct service user representatives were sought. However, as it was a public meeting, Healthwatch Oxfordshire was always welcome to come along to address meetings.

Dr McManners commented that more thought was needed on how best to use the power of Health & Wellbeing Board to bring various bodies together, such as the voluntary sector and the acute sector in a bid to identify gaps which required addressing. Joanna Simons agreed but suggested that this could be realised by means of task & finish groups or away days etc. She emphasised that the changes to the structure of the Partnership Boards were not a dispersal of functions, but were merely an attempt at streamlining in order to avoid any duplication.

Cllr Mark Booty proposed the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Health Improvement Partnership Board be added to the membership of the Joint management Groups. John Jackson advised that the OPJMG was the JMG which attracted member activity, the other JMGs being much smaller and focussing on performance issues, and pointing out that the norm was that if a member was unable to attend meetings, then an officer would attend in their place.

It was AGREED:

(a)  to thank Lucy Butler and Councillors Mrs Heathcoat and Booty for their reports;

(b)  to dissolve the Adult Health & Social Care Board;

(c)   that the joint Management Groups would report directly to the Health & Wellbeing Board in the future, including responsibility for the appropriate measures for adults in the Joint Health & Wellbeing Strategy;

(d)  that the Oxfordshire Joint Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee should continue to hold the Joint Management Groups to account for the delivery of joint commissioning strategies and pooled budgets; and

(e)  to add the Chairman  and Deputy Chairman of the Health Improvement Board to the membership of the OPJMG.