Agenda item

15.10

The Chairman’s report is attached at JHO16 to include an update on health and social care liaison.

Prior to consideration of this item the Committee was addressed by Liz Peretz a representative of Keep our NHS Public Campaign Group (KONP).

She urged the Committee to continue the fight to insist that whilst the referral of the PET-CT scanner procurement process to the Secretary of State for Health was being processed, that NHS England do not sign the contract with InHealth. She thanked the Chairman for his clear reply on behalf of the Committee to the undersecretary Seema Kennedy’s which was a clear refusal to accept her response.

She stated that it was helpful for the public to note the Committee’s argument that NHSE’s ‘improper’ process was a threat to all HOSC’s, not just to Oxfordshire. Further, that in proposed service changes covering several authorities, NHSE should have requested a wider HOSC for all the relevant patient populations. She pointed out that the legal remit of HOSC covered not just the service changes but had responsibility to ‘review or scrutinise any matter relating to the planning, provision and operation of health services in Oxfordshire’; adding that ‘the very strong clinical advice to HOSC was unequivocal that NHSE’s plans regarding the PET scanners at the Churchill Hospital would result in a qualitative reduction in the service offered to patients’.

She called for the original process, the route to preferred bidder status, to be re-run.

Finally, KONP felt that it had been very wrong of the Secretary of State to treat the only legal democratic voice for the people of Oxfordshire, ie. HOSC, with the contempt shown in the letters. She added that no HOSC took its responsibilities lightly, and the decision taken by Oxfordshire was on appropriate grounds. KONP wanted the retain the excellent clinicians at OUH.

The Chairman agreed that the Committee had set out the clear legal arguments in the letter, to which the DoH had committed to send out their latest response by the end of June. He added that there may be a need to call a special meeting in July to consider other potential actions.

On the conclusion of the discussion, the Committee AGREED to request the Chairman to:

(a)  send out another letter to DoH asking them not to sign the contract until the process had run its course;

(b)  write to OUH to request an update on the partnership talks which the Trust was engaged in; and

(c)  to note the Chairman’s report JHO13.