May meeting of Cumbria Health Scrutiny Committee

The next meeting of the Cumbria Health Scrutiny Committee will take place on Wednesday 22nd May at County Hall in Kendal at 10.30 am . The meeting is open to the public.

Copies of all the reports to be presented to the meeting are available on the County Council website here.

The agenda is as follows:

Item 1. Election of Vice-Chair 
To appoint a Vice Chair who shall be a District Council representative for the ensuing year. The Vice Chair shall be appointed by the District Council representatives serving on the Committee.

2. Apologies for Absence 
To receive any apologies for absence.

3. Membership of the Committee 
To note any changes to the membership of the Committee.

4. Disclosures of Interest 
Members are invited to disclose any disclosable pecuniary interest they have in any item on the agenda

5. Exclusion of Press and Public
To consider whether the press and public should be excluded from the meeting during consideration of any item on the agenda.

(They won't be.)

6. Minutes 
To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 26 February 2019

7. Committee Briefing Report
To consider a report by the Strategic Policy and Scrutiny Adviser

8. HealthCare for the Future Update 
To consider a report by the Chief Operating Officer, NHS North Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group.

9. Familiar Faces 
To receive a presentation from North Cumbria Health and Care.

10. Mental Health Services in North and South Cumbria
To consider a joint report by North Cumbria and Morecambe Bay Clinical Commissioning Groups

11. Date of Future Meeting 
To note that the next meeting of the Committee will be held on Thursday 18 July 2019 at 10.30 am at County Offices, Kendal.

Mental Health Awareness week

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, which this year focuses on body image and the impact it can have on mental health.

·      Body image issues can cause anxieties for many young people in particular, and can lead to mental health conditions.

 

·      The government's long-term plan for the NHS delivers record investment in mental health services – an extra £2.3 billion by 2023-24 – including faster access to help for conditions like eating disorders.

 

·      There is more to do to ensure that looking after our mental health becomes just as natural as looking after our physical health, and no one ever feels they have to suffer in silence again.

 

·      The government is committed to increasing the share of the NHS budget which is spent on mental health services and making them more accessible, as well as tackling the root causes of mental health conditions.

 

The government is taking action to protect people from concerns about body image:

                                                                                                                             

·      On Tuesday, the Department of Health launched an awareness campaign on the risks of cosmetic procedures. The campaign has been launched due to concerns about the number of people experiencing serious side effects of cosmetic procedures‎, and encourages people to choose a suitably qualified and professional practitioner for their treatment. New advice will set out the questions people should ask before they undergo any cosmetic procedure. We are also working to explore how to strengthen the regulation of cosmetic procedures and improve standards.

 

·      On Wednesday, the Mental Health Minister called on social media companies to take action to tackle online bullying. Social media can have a damaging impact on body image. Jackie Doyle-Price said she hoped that abusing people online would become as socially unacceptable as drink driving, and that social media companies would become more vigilant about the content they host.

 

And the government is prioritising mental health support by:

 

·      Allocating £2.3 billion of the £33.9 billion investment in the NHS to mental health services. This means mental health services will receive a growing share of the NHS budget (NHS England, NHS Long Term Plan, 7 January 2019, link).

 

·      Setting out in the long-term plan for the NHS how this funding will improve access to mental health services. The plan will improve services for people with common and severe mental health problems, make more care available in the community, boost emergency and inpatient care, and ensure suicide prevention remains a priority (NHS England, NHS Long Term Plan, 7 January 2019, link).

 

·      Investing in mental health services for young people to ensure they can access support when they need it. The government is providing an additional £1.4 billion up to 2020-21 to improve access to mental health services for children and young people, and an additional £300 million over the next three years to deliver the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Green Paper (Hansard, WQ125663, 7 February 2018, link; Hansard, WQ170687, 10 September 2018, link.).

 

·      Publishing an Online Harms White Paper to protect peoples’ mental health online. Technology can be hugely beneficial, but we must ensure it does not damage peoples’ mental health. The White Paper sets out the responsibilities of online platforms to protect users (DCMS, Press Release, 8 April 2019, link).

 

·      Appointing the UK’s first Minister for Suicide Prevention to lead government efforts to cut the number of suicides and overcome the stigma that stops people seeking help. Jackie Doyle-Price will lead a national effort on suicide prevention, bringing together a ministerial taskforce and working with national and local government, experts in suicide and self-harm prevention, charities, clinicians and those personally affected by suicide (Prime Minister’s Office, Press Release, 9 October 2018, link).

 

·      Focussing on addressing mental illness from a younger age, as half of all mental illness begins by the age of 14. A new Green Paper will set out plans to provide designated mental health leads in schools, earlier access to services through the creation of new Mental Health Support Teams, and pilot a new four-week waiting time standard for young people to ensure everyone receives treatment in the right place at the right time (DfE and DHSC, Response to the Select Committee Report on the Green Paper, 25 July 2018, link).

Working Together Steering Group

I attended a meeting of the West Cumbria "Working Together Steering Group" this evening at the Workington Oval.

In the words of the description on the group's page on the local NHS website,

This is the group supporting our work to try and make Option 1 for maternity and paediatrics a reality – that’s consultant–led care at the West Cumberland Hospital and a Short Stay Paediatric Assessment Unit at both hospitals with inpatient services in Carlisle and some overnight beds in Whitehaven for less poorly children. 

You can find details of the group and it's meetings on that website here.

They are open to all residents of West, North and East Cumbria.

Yes, that's right, I spent the evening before an election at a meeting rather than campaigning - because there's no point getting elected to things if you're not going to attend really important meetings relevant to the job you're trying to do. And this was a really important meeting for healthcare in West Cumbria.

The main agenda item, which essentially took up the whole meeting, was to work on the presentation that the group will be making to the Independent Review Group chaired by Dr Bill Kirkup CBE which is examining the sustainability of Option 1 - consultant-led maternity care at WCH.

The 12 month study period has now finished and Dr Kirkup's group is preparing their report on the maternity provision in North Cumbria and their recommendations could be very important.

The signs are looking positive but we cannot take anything for granted.

It was a very constructive meeting this evening: one of the things we were talking about was the extent to which "co-production" e.g. involving the wider community in health decisions is working: the tone and content of the meeting and the atmosphere of constructive engagement in which it took place demonstrated that we have come a long way in the past two years. 

For example it is now recognised to a much greater extent on both sides that the community and medical professionals both have a view about risk and that both views are valid. 

We still need to do more and I shall be thinking about how we can involve more people in discussions like the one we had this evening.

Modern communications for a modern NHS

Yesterday the Health Secretary announced an ambition that all hospitals and GP practices should have the fastest broadband available, supporting the long-term plan for the NHS which aims to deliver dramatic improvements for patients and their families. 

• All hospitals and GP practices should have the fastest fibre-optic broadband to support radical improvements to digital healthcare services. 
• Almost 40 per cent of NHS organisations are using slow and unreliable internet, which restricts the ability to offer digital services to patients. 
• These new plans will allow doctors to offer more services, such as video consultations, to patients as part of a new ‘digital first’ offer across NHS – meaning that more of the patient consultations with GPs and outpatient clinics will be offered online. 
• Cloud-based patient records will help clinicians access crucial information, including high resolution images, improving patient safety and speeding up appointments. 

Why this matters:

We need to unlock the full potential of technology so that we can give people complete control over how they access NHS services and make the NHS fit for the 21st century.