Agenda item

12:00

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust (OUH) is required to send a copy of their Annual Quality Account to a range of external bodies for review and comment. This is the Committee’s opportunity to provide comment and question the accounts. Clare Dollery, Deputy Medical Director, will attend from the Oxford University Hospitals Trust for the discussion.

The following documents are attached at JHO8:

·         Overview of draft 2014/15 Quality Account.

·         Quality Account 2014/15 – a summary for Oxfordshire Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee

The Joint Committee is requested by the OUH to note the contents of the Quality Account bearing in mind that it is in draft form and has not yet been signed off by the Trust; and to send a statement for inclusion in the published document.

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust (OUHT) was required to send a copy of their Annual Quality Account to a range of external bodies for review and comment. This was the Committee’s opportunity to provide comment and question performance accounts against last year’s priorities and priorities for 2015/16.

The Committee had the following documents before them at JHO8:

·         Overview of draft 2014/15 Quality Account

·         Quality Account 2014/15  - a summary for this Committee (a full report was available on the OUHT website)

Members were asked to note the contents of the Quality Account, bearing in mind that it was in draft form and had not yet been signed off by the Trust; to discuss the report and whether it met the needs of the population the Trust represented, and to send a statement for inclusion in the published document.

Tony Berendt, Medical Director, and Clare Dollery, Deputy Medical Director, attended.

A member commented that the report was difficult to read and be understood by the layman. Dr Berendt responded that there was a desire on the part of the Trust to paint a very comprehensive picture adding that the advanced executive summary was very easy to read.

Dr Berendt, when asked why there was only one reference to cancer and the psychological services, responded that the monitoring of these services had not yet been finalised. He added that cancer treatment was currently going through a major validation process. Moreover that currently the Trust was meeting the targets on the majority of indicators for which there was monitoring.

A member asked whether the priorities for the next year differed to the current ones and whether any were no longer top priority. Dr Berendt referred the Committee to the diagram on page 53 of the Agenda which highlighted the topics that were actively being worked on, such as the improvement of handover processes between Health and Social Care, and those topics which required ongoing work from 2013/14.

The Committee expressed a wish to see the quality outcomes in the final report as referenced on page 79 and highlighted as part of Oxfordshire’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA), with a view to seeing a focus on getting the basics right. For example, they felt that unless there was an improvement in A & E waits, then endorsement of the final document would not be wholehearted. Dr Berendt reassured the Committee that there was no intention to miss out any topics.

In response to a question about whether OUHT and the GPs were sharing the same computer system, Dr Berendt stated that this was not the case, although the summary care record allowed some patient information to be accessed. He added that a significant amount of work was still to be done to get all the systems to be compliant with each other and to share information. However, the eventual goal was to have a seamless transfer of information. A member asked what constraints there were to ensure that patient information was not sold to other parties. Dr Berendt gave his assurance that there were strict regulations about the way in which data could be shared; and that information governance and consents for it was very clearly set out.  She added that there were anonymous methods of linking information available which could lead to the prediction of outcomes.