Agenda item

6.1

The Committee received a report of the Director of Adult Services, setting out how the NHS and the City Council was performing in Sheffield, particularly in relation to support for older people with their health and care needs.  Appended to the report was an Action Plan agreed with key partners to ensure continual improvement, produced in respect to the Local Area Review of Sheffield’s health and care support for older people that was carried out by the Care Quality Commission (CCQ) in Spring, 2018.

6.2

In attendance for this item were Phil Holmes, (Director of Adult Services), Steven Haigh, (Primary Care Sheffield), Becky Joyce, (Accountable Care Partnership Director) and David Throssell, (Sheffield Teaching Hospitals).

6.3

Becky Joyce referred to the Action Plan, stating that the Local Area Review had help to identify the areas of focus to drive forward the necessary improvements and key actions, had been agreed for each of the five priority areas; these being to work in a way that acknowledges and improves older people’s views and experiences; to have a shared city-wide workforce strategy to further develop multi-agency working; clearer governance to ensure stronger joint working between organisations and greater involvement with the Voluntary, Community and Faith sector; a shift to prevent at scale supported by clear commissioning arrangements; and a strong system focus on  enabling the right support from the right people in the right time and place to provide the best possible experience for older people and to ensure best use of resources.  She added that Sheffield’s Accountable Care Partnership (ACP) was a group of health and care organisations responsible for enabling and delivering the Plan, and were directly accountable for its progress.

6.4

Members made various comments and asked a number of questions, to which responses were provided as follows:-

·                     The plan was to work in a more sophisticated way in dealing with older people and reaching those most vulnerable.

·                     The Frailty Unit at the Northern General Hospital was where people were assessed on a daily basis to prevent them from staying in hospital for longer than necessary.  Also it looked into what blocked people from going home in the first instance.

·                     Information regarding comparator studies within the core cities could be provided.

·                     The poor experiences of people are where lessons are learned to improve the quality of the service and work better with the Voluntary Sector.

·                     There were new initiatives being carried out in the A&E Department to try and reduce waiting times for treatment and ambulance transport, to reduce pressures on the system and be less confusing for older people.

·                     Originally there had been about seven or eight private home care providers working together, but this had now increased to approximately 40.  The aim was to strike a right balance around the city, make local connections and have a good relationship between providers.  There was a focus on having a slightly smaller number of providers.

·                     It was felt that to meet the challenge it was necessary to listen to what matters to older people, and to work in a more integrated way, focussing on prevention.

·                     It was felt that there needed to be clear governance arrangements between the Health and Wellbeing Board, the Accountable Care Partnership and this Scrutiny Committee to allow for a true scrutiny of process and accountability.

·                     There was a need to be clear about what matters at the very start of a care plan, to build in resilience and cease doing things in the traditional way.

·                     To ensure that staff can act on and listen to the voice of older people, it was felt that there was a need to remove unnecessary bureaucracy so that staff have the space to hold conversations with people and take away of lot of the processes that don’t add any value to the level of support for older people with their health and care needs. It was felt that measures around staff engagement were required.

·                     A public session of the Accountable Care Partnership Board, along with members of Healthwatch and the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Sector, was to be held in an attempt to improve transparency.

6.5

RESOLVED: That the Committee:

(a)       thanks those attending for their contribution to the meeting;

(b)       notes the contents of the report and the responses to the questions; and

(c)        requests that an update report on the Local System Review Action Plan be presented to the Committee at a future meeting, including the voice of older people.