Issue - meetings

Report from the County Leadership Team (CC12).

On 21 February the Cabinet considered a paper from the Council leadership team setting out the officers’ assessment of the Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group’s (OCCG) proposals for the future of health and care services in the County. They agreed the following recommendation, ‘to welcome the opportunity to comment on this consultation, acknowledge the difficulties faced by NHS services locally as presented in the OCCGs case for change, but on balance not to support the proposals based on the lack of information on the impact on council services and that of the public.’

Cabinet’s views on the proposals were presented to the Oxfordshire Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OJHOSC) on 7 March. The OJHOSC is the statutory consultee on substantial developments or variations in the provision of the health service. OJHOSC invited evidence from a wide range of organisations and will be responding to the OCCG consultation with comments and recommendations as well as meeting again to consider whether the OCCG has responded adequately to the issues it has raised.

Due to the scale, impact and interest of all members in the proposals to transform local health services Cabinet wants to give County Council the opportunity to consider the potential impact on council services and the public. These views will be collated and fed back to the OCCG as part of the consultation process.

A copy of the Consultation document can be found on the CCG web site: The Oxfordshire Big Health & Care Consultation: Phase 1 - Consultation Document

Council is RECOMMENDED to:

(a)          note the views expressed to HOSC by Cabinet on the proposals;

(b)         identify any further concerns regarding the proposals;

(c)          agree for Officers to summarise these further concerns to the OCCG as a response to the consultation;

(d)      Share these concerns with HOSC to aid their further consideration of the OCCG proposals.

Recommendations agreed (by 55 votes to 0, with 1 abstention)

On 21 February the Cabinet had considered a paper from the Council leadership team setting out the officers’ assessment of the Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group’s (OCCG) proposals for the future of health and care services in the County. They agreed the following recommendation, ‘to welcome the opportunity to comment on this consultation, acknowledge the difficulties faced by NHS services locally as presented in the OCCGs case for change, but on balance not to support the proposals based on the lack of information on the impact on council services and that of the public.’

Cabinet’s views on the proposals were presented to the Oxfordshire Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OJHOSC) on 7 March. The OJHOSC was the statutory consultee on substantial developments or variations in the provision of the health service. OJHOSC invited evidence from a wide range of organisations and would be responding to the OCCG consultation with comments and recommendations as well as meeting again to consider whether the OCCG had responded adequately to the issues it had raised.

Due to the scale, impact and interest of all members in the proposals to transform local health services Cabinet wanted to give County Council the opportunity to consider the potential impact on Council services and the public. These views will be collated and fed back to the OCCG as part of the consultation process.  According the Council now had before it the report for consideration.

Councillor Heathcoat moved and Councillor Hudspeth seconded that the recommendations set out in the report and on the face on the Agenda be adopted.

There then followed a lengthy debate in which the Council indicated its strong opposition to the proposals and rejected the consultation. The following points were raised during debate:

Members discussed the Oxfordshire transformation proposals in the wider national context of significant financial challenge for the NHS and social care. They wanted to emphasise that they understood that the situation the CCG is facing is a result of national policy. The rising demand for health services and lack of funding to address this was a huge national issue which was being played out locally to the detriment of services for local people.

Members felt that the consultation did not make clear the impact on social care and there was a lack of modelling to accurately assess this. It was felt that the proposals would benefit from a workforce plan setting out how the impact on carers would be managed. It should not be assumed that county council services would be able to absorb the impact of the changes on social care. It was also noted that the care sector is financially very fragile as recent examples of agencies becoming insolvent shows.

Members expressed frustration that no options for alternative delivery options were presented in the consultation. Some members felt this implied a ‘fait accompli’ as no alternative future arrangements were presented for consideration. It was also unacceptable to expect proposals for substantial bed closures to be agreed without any detail about  ...  view the full minutes text for item 114

Cabinet Member: Leader

Forward Plan Ref: 2016/155

Contact: Claire Phillips, Senior Policy Officer Tel: 07785 453260

Report from the County Leadership Team (CA8).

The Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group launched the first phase of its consultation on the future of Oxfordshire Health and Care Services on January 16th 2017. The county council is a consultee in the process. This report provides an assessment by the Council Leadership Team on the potential impact the proposals may have on council services and on the public and proposes an approach for how Cabinet may wish to respond to the consultation and present its views to full Council in March.

A copy of the Consultation document can be found on the CCG web site: The Oxfordshire Big Health & Care Consultation: Phase 1 - Consultation Document

Further associated documents are also available on the CCG site.

Recommendations agreed subject to adding “and that of the public” to the end of the first recommendation

The Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group had launched the first phase of its consultation on the future of Oxfordshire Health and Care Services on January 16th 2017. The County Council was a consultee in the process. Cabinet had before them a report providing an assessment by the Council Leadership Team on the potential impact the proposals may have on Council services and on the public and proposing an approach for how Cabinet may wish to respond to the consultation and present its views to full Council in March.

Dr Ken Williamson, Chair of Oxfordshire Keep Our NHS Public addressed the Cabinet in support of the Council Leadership Team report and its recommendations, He agreed the consultation was flawed, in that it had only given a partial picture of how services could look in the future; that the consultation document was incoherent, lacked cohesion and failed to acknowledge the domino effect of closures at the Horton and acute beds at the JR. 

Keep Our NHS Public believed that the Consultation had also relied on major assumptions, especially about the workforce; that the decisions were premature; closing beds without viable alternatives in community or home-based settings puts cost cutting way ahead of providing a service to the people of Oxfordshire, particularly the Frail Elderly; that Published plans cannot be workable or sustainable with current chronic underfunding of the local health economy. They believed the Bucks, Oxfordshire and West Berks Sustainability and Transformation Plan (BOB STP) was about making ‘savings’ not about investing in Health & Social Care services. Its appendices on finance, workforce, activities and service and risk assessments had not been published.

The HOSC’s referral of the de facto down grade of Maternity at the Horton to the Secretary of State was applauded as it flagged the down grade of the whole hospital and was sufficient reason to halt phase 1 of the consultation.

A study based on ONS figures showed that year on year increases in the numbers of surviving over-80s had already reversed in the year to July 2015, with a loss of just under 40,000 elderly in England and Wales, continuing the trend since the start of austerity in 2010. He asked whether the Council could allow this to accelerate and whether the Council would increase council tax to partially address the Social care crisis in the face of central government’s refusal to do so from general taxation.

He urged the Cabinet to endorse the Leadership Team’s report.

Councillor Hibbert-Biles in moving the report endorsed the comments made above and commented that the consultation only presented a partial picture and that it was impossible to separate the impact of phase 1 on phase 2 and vice versa. She expressed grave concern around the comments in relation to the future of midwifery-led obstetric care in the north of the County and in particular the potential loss of those services in Banbury and Chipping Norton and generally about the way the information on maternity services was presented in the consultation.

During discussion  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19