Agenda and minutes

The Chair introduced Members of the Committee

Councillor Jilani Chowdhury

Councillor Angela Picknell stated that she was substituting for Councillor Jilani Chowdhury

If you have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest* in an item of business:

§  if it is not yet on the council’s register, you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent;

§  you may choose to declare a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest that is already in the register in the interests of openness and transparency. 

In both the above cases, you must leave the room without participating in discussion of the item.

If you have a personal interest in an item of business and you intend to speak or vote on the item you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent but you may participate in the discussion and vote on the item.

*(a)Employment, etc - Any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain.

 (b)Sponsorship - Any payment or other financial benefit in respect of your expenses in carrying out

  duties as a member, or of your election; including from a trade union.

 (c)Contracts - Any current contract for goods, services or works, between you or your partner (or a body

 in which one of you has a beneficial interest) and the council.

 (d)Land - Any beneficial interest in land which is within the council’s area.

 (e)Licences- Any licence to occupy land in the council’s area for a month or longer.

 (f)Corporate tenancies - Any tenancy between the council and a body in which you or your partner have

  a beneficial interest.

 (g)Securities - Any beneficial interest in securities of a body which has a place of business or land in the council’s area, if the total nominal value of the securities exceeds £25,000 or one hundredth of the total issued share capital of that body or of any one class of its issued share capital. 

This applies to all members present at the meeting.

None

The Chair stated that the order of business would be as per the agenda

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 16 May be confirmed and the Chair be authorised to sign them

The Chair will update the Committee on recent events.

The Chair stated that the next meeting of the JOHSC would be held the following day at L.B.Islington and a new Chair and Vice Chairs would need to be elected.

The Chair also referred to the fact that Hyde Housing Association would not be present to give evidence that meeting because of outstanding legal issues in relation to some properties with tenants and outlined a statement from Hyde in this regard.

The Chair added that he had also been in correspondence with the Chair of the Whittington Hospital in relation to Governance issues and it is anticipated he would attend the next meeting of the Committee in this regard. The Whittington NHS Trust Quality Account would also be considered at this meeting.

The Chair outlined the procedure for Public questions and filming and recording of meetings

Councillor Janet Burgess, Executive Member Health and Wellbeing was present for discussion of this item and outlined the following main points –

·         She was now sitting as an observer on the Whittington Hospital Trust Board and that the last meeting had been a useful one

·         The number of consultants in Accident and Emergency at the Whittington Hospital were being increased from 6.5 to 10 and it is hoped that this will increase performance although this would add to the financial pressures on the Trust

·         There is concern at the shortage of nursing staff across London and a lack of suitable applicants given the high costs of housing in London Borough of Islington

·         The Whittington were carrying out an Estates strategy, however the Trust were engaging with the Defend the Whittington campaign

·         The results of the Annual Adults Social care survey had revealed a satisfaction rate of 56% and Councillor Burgess had indicated that she had requested that a comparison be done with other Local Authorities to ascertain if such a comparative low level of satisfaction is common

·         There had been no delays in transfer of care at the Whittington in the last 4/5 weeks although there has been a problem at St.Pancras

·         Work is continuing to take place on the integrated health and social care programme and pooling of budgets and Islington appeared to be ahead of other boroughs in this

·         It is pleasing to note that the payment of the LLW to care staff has resulted in a reduction in staff leaving

The Chair thanked Councillor Burgess for her update

Taffy Gattawa, Assistant Director Quality and David Barry, Lead Governor Camden and Islington Mental Health Foundation Trust were present for discussion of this item an outlined the report.

During consideration of the report the following main points were made –

·         In response to a question it was stated that there were dedicated beds for mental health patients with learning disabilities

·         Concern was expressed at the fact that BME were not present in higher graded posts and the staff survey had revealed that there had been complaints of bullying and harassment of staff. It was stated that events had been organised for staff in order to learn from their concerns and an Equality Manager had been appointed. However it is important that line management gave opportunities to BME staff and were trained appropriately

·         In response to a question as to the fact that there was a high figure of 38% of staff who reported instances of bullying/harassment it was stated that Governors were committed to reducing this figure and ensure that procedures are put in place to deal with this. However it was noted that there had been a number of financial and changing of requirements placed on the Trust which may have contributed at the time to this. A non-Executive Director had been appointed with oversight of this issue

·         Reference was made to the high discharge rate and it was stated that female patients were often placed in private facilities and were registered as a discharge even though they may return to the Trust and there would be a strengthening of discharge arrangements

·         There had been an increase in patients who could not be discharged as they are homeless and the Trust were in discussions with L.B.’s Islington and Camden on this issue

·         The Trust had implementation lead officers for priorities and there is stakeholder engagement to learn from stakeholder experiences

·         The Trust met every quarter to monitor progress on priorities

·         Training for staff is taking place on the Mental Health Act and other role specific training is also taking place

·         Reference was also made to the fact that whilst safeguarding issues had been highlighted there is a need to also identify issues for carers who are often subject to attacks from mental health patients and their views needed to be taken into account and built into the next Quality Account process

·         Members expressed the view that the Trust should include how effective the measures to combat bullying/harassment and BME career progression that have been put in place in the next Quality Account presented to the Committee

The Chair thanked Taffy Gatawa and David Barry for attending

Charlotte Ashton and Emma Stubbs, Public Health were present for discussion of this item and made a presentation to the Committee.

During consideration of the report the following main points were made –

·         It is necessary to support clients to sustain their recovery and to support them into treatment services

·         There is a need to ensure that substance misuse is not addressed in isolation, with a particular overlap with mental health. There are substantial opportunities for working in a more integrated way across substance misuse and mental health services in order to support a cohort of individuals with overlapping needs

·         It is important to ensure that following hospital intervention connection is ongoing to enable clients to access support services

·         It is important to ensure that the dangers of substance abuse are made clear and Public Health did get information concerning age of those going to A&E including age, gender and ethnic breakdown and that this information could be circulated to Members

·         Those people with substance misuse problems tended to have more than one problem and work is going on with the Mental Health Trust to raise awareness

·         Work also is taking place with front line staff and events are held to raise awareness of substance misuse and work took place with Licensing to limit the number of outlets selling alcohol, especially late at night

·         There is a high percentage of residents with substance misuse problems that are NEET’s

·         The Drug and Alcohol budget is a large percentage of the Public Health budget allocation – about 33% but work is taking place to provide savings by working collaboratively

·         In response to a question it was stated that there may be a spike in substance misuse problems with legal highs that have now been made illegal

The Chair thanked Charlotte Ashton and Emma Stubbs for their presentation

The Chair stated that this item would now be considered at the meeting on 14 July

The Chair stated that Hyde Housing Association had not been willing to attend the meeting that evening given the ongoing legal issues with residents at Alderwick Court as stated earlier in the meeting but he hoped that they would attend the next meeting

RESOLVED:

That the work programme be noted