Agenda item

14:15

Healthcare providers publishing Quality Accounts have a legal duty to send their Quality Account to the local HOSC. Representatives from Oxford University Hospitals Foundation Trust (OUH) and Oxford Health Foundation Trust will present an overview of their Quality Priorities for 2016/17.

In light of the timing of their Board meetings and of this Committee, full quality account reports are not available at the time of the Agenda publication.

The full report of the OUH will be available in the next few days and will be circulated separately to members of the Committee. It will also be uploaded onto the website when received.

A summary briefing from Oxford Health providing an indication of the Trust’s priorities and objectives to be contained in the report is attached at JHO11.

Oxford Health Financial Trust (OH)

The Chairman welcomed Ros Alsted, Director of Nursing & Clinical Standards and Jane Kershaw, Acting Head of Quality & Safety, Oxford Health Financial Trust (OH).

The Committee had before them a summary version of the Quality report. A finalised, detailed report had been circulated to members that day. Ros Alsted reported that the summary had focused on prioritisations. She pointed out that representatives had recently attended Committee to discuss the findings from the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Eleven were evaluated as good, one was outstanding and four required improvement.

Jane Kershaw reported that the Trust had identified for priority areas in 2015/16 and were also keeping the same ones for next year. The four priority areas were as set out in the report.

A Committee member asked about the problems being experienced both nationally and locally regarding the recruitment of nursing staff. Jane Kershaw responded that the overall majority of staff in lower paid work were not clinical members of staff. She added that that there were multifactoral reasons why the problems were unique to Oxfordshire, such as high property and rental costs, but the Trust remained very focused in trying to attract people into the workforce. It had achieved relative success, particularly in respect of the recruitment of nursing staff. She added that in one year’s time the bursary system would change, but any problems would not emerge for 4 years. In the meantime, efforts were being made to recruit and retain staff by working together to ensure career pathways were in place, for example. This was an important priority for the Quality account.

The Committee AGREED to note the priorities and objectives proposed for the Quality Account in 2016/17.

Oxford University Hospitals Foundation Trust (OUH)

The Chairman welcomed Dr Tony Berendt, Director of Quality, and Claire Dollery, Deputy Director of Quality, OUH.

Dr Berendt gave his apologies for the full Quality report arriving too late to be despatched with the papers for this meeting, but stated that he was pleased to be given the opportunity to discuss the report.

Dr Berendt, during his report to Committee, commented that discharges to GP care had more than doubled. He also stated that the work put into the DTOC programme could not have taken place without all the input that Health and Social Care colleagues had put into the system.

He reported that a public engagement event, to which both governors and staff had attended, had been held on the Quality account, when an overview of the previous year’s account and a reflection on outcomes had taken place. A session had also been held on intended priorities for the coming year. The Trust was doing a piece of work on improving the discharge process as part of DTOC work. Part of this was to empower patients and families to ask the right questions. He added that he would be happy to give an update in progress. He undertook to let the Committee know of future patient and public dates in respect of the Quality account process. The Committee welcomed this, commenting that this would ensure a much smoother process for major programmes and their implementation.

Dr Berendt referred to a one day training programme for staff on Compassionate Care which had been arranged and delivered by the Chief Nurse and the HR Department. Patient participants would be encouraged to relate their own experiences, with the aim of helping staff to more consciously empathise with what is occurring. He added that the plan was to broaden this out still further in the future to pick up other medical staff.

In response to questions about incidents of maladministration, Claire Dollery reported that she had worked this year to identify those which were of high risk. For example, a programme to identify any time-critical medication and means by which staff could learn about these and put them into practice. Dr Berendt added that errors in prescribing medication via different kinds of nursing error.

A member of the Committee asked how many cases of sepsis was occurring via hospital acquired infection. Dr Berendt responded that the majority of the cases were community acquired cases. Claire Dollery added that there were two principal streams of work with the sepsis group, one was ensuring that the appropriate antibiotics were given in one hour; and use of data to identify the correct antibiotic.

A member commented that it was difficult for the Committee members to effectively undertake the job of scrutiny if documents were not received in time, particularly in view of their size. Dr Berendt responded that Quality priorities were set nationally and that the Trust’s Quality priorities linked into those of lead organisations on patient safety, mortality etc and national priorities had to be met.

The Committee AGREED to note the priorities and objectives for the Quality Account in 2016/17.