Agenda item

10.10 am (timings are estimates)

To review the Quality Account of the Trust, specifically, the quality objectives for this year and the next.

NB The report from the Director of Law & Governance covers both Quality Account items.

The Chair addressed the Committee by saying that Helen Mitchell (Scrutiny Officer) would gather the feedback from Committee Members as part of this session and combine comments into a letter which would be agreed by the Chair and shared with the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (Trust).

The Chair invited Dr Andrew Brent (Deputy Medical Director) to give a presentation to the Committee (as per agenda).

Following a presentation from Dr Brent these points were highlighted:

·       Trust’s Quality Priorities were developed with stakeholder input from across the whole organisation and its divisions, and then approved by the Trust’s Medical Executive and the Trust’s Board.  The Quality Priorities were seen as a vehicle for getting traction on particular issues, and for other issues there was a separate workstream put in place.

·       The Trust would use national framework when investigating any incidents in terms of the harm and the levels of harm.  At its most basic, the clinicians would review and report if they believed there was a case of harm in patients.

·       In terms of Quality Priorities, under Medication Safety / Insulin and Opiates – this priority was different from last year when Insulin and Anticoagulants were listed.  The rationale for changing from anticoagulants to opiates was that many of previous priorities had become business as usual with strong governance process in place to oversee the delivery.

·       The Committee expressed their concern that despite clear description of priorities in the presentation, there was no information about outcomes of the priorities that were set last year and what improvements had been put in place as a result.  Dr Brent responded that outcomes of the priorities were available, yet it may not be a public document, and that would be something he could discuss with his colleagues for future reports.

·       The Trust has to report nationally on C.difficile and MRSA pathogens in line with set national targets.  This was seen as business as usual for the organisation and therefore not set as a priority.  In terms of antimicrobial stewardship – the Trust was an example nationally on its conservative position in terms of broader spectrum of antibiotics being used only when they were needed.

·       Dr Brent explained to the Committee that the Trust had used NHS England and NHS Improvement major improvement programme called GIRFT (getting it right first time) which would use hospital data to benchmark across the country, and that data would then be used for action plans.

·       The Committee felt that future Quality Priorities reports from the Trust and other partners should be standardised considering suggested improvements by the Committee.

It was RESOLVED that the Committee:

a)              Noted a presentation from Dr Andrew Brent.

b)              Agreed to delegate to the Interim Scrutiny Manager the task of compiling the Committee’s comments on the Quality Accounts in the form of a letter and to authorise the Chair to sign the letter to Oxford University Hospital NHS FT on behalf of the Oxfordshire Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee for incorporation into the 2021/22 Quality Accounts.

c)              Agreed that future Quality Reports from the Trust and other partners should be standardised and improved next year.