Agenda and minutes

Councillor Klute welcomed everyone to the meeting. Members of the Committee and officers introduced themselves.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Chowdhury for lateness.

There were no declarations of substitute members.

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.

There were no declarations of interest.

The order of business would be as per the agenda.

That the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 21 October 2014 be confirmed and the Chair be authorised to sign them subject to the inclusion of Councillor Heather in the attendance list..

The Chair will update the Committee on recent events.

The Chair welcomed the announcement that Simon Pleydell had been appointed as Chief Executive of the Whittington on a permanent basis.

Concerns had been reported about the St Martin of Tours Care Home at Wilton Villas regarding interaction between residents of the home and local residents.

Concerns had also been reported to the Chair about the standard of care at Bridge Wharf palliative care facility.

A tender process for a new out of hours service across the five NCL boroughs would be undertaken and was being led by Liz Wise from Enfield.

New CQC ratings for GPs were due to be published and could flag up potential areas of concern in Islington.

Councillor Burgess reported that she shared the Chair’s concern about the Wilton Street facility and stated that another visit would be taking place with a report back due by the end of the week.

Delays to ambulance services were also reported to be an issue.

The Health and Wellbeing Board were undertaking a refresh after operating for two to three years in shadow and formal committee formats.

Councillors were still interested in mental health first aid training in a shorter format.

A mental health conference had taken place at the beginning of November involving representatives from the BME and LGBT communities. Hillside Clubhouse had helped to organise the event and it had been well received.

The new Domiciliary Care Contract had been launched and was the first in the country to offer the London Living Wage. The new contract had been signed for St Anne’s Care Home which would also offer LLW to staff.

ICope services had moved into the basement of Finsbury Health Centre and were very happy with their new facilities.

Simon Galczynski,  Service Director Adult Social Care, Jess Mcgregor AD - Strategic Commissioning, Tessa Cole, Improvement & Efficiency Programme Manager and Greg Pearson, Head of Performance presented the report to the Committee.

In the discussion the following points were made:

·         The Care Act represented a significant time of change and the new legislation required changes in service evaluation.

·         A requirement to cooperate and a duty to promote wellbeing was placed on the NHS and local authorities.

·         A new lifetime care cap of £72,000 would also be introduced as part of this process.

·         Supply of adequate housing was covered by housing legislation.

·         The local authority could be open to legal challenge if they failed to meet their new duties under the act.

·         More information on transition and how the new act would work alongside the Children and Families Act responsibilities could be provided.

·         There were identified risks relating to possible funding gaps and all councils were raising this as an issue.

·         The council were seeking legal advice to look at all risks and challenges to understand how the council could continue to provide care at the same levels under possible increased funding pressures.

·         The Carers Hubs and Centre 404 had been successful at identifying hidden carers and it was important to build on those approaches with additional factors such as peer support.

·         A new information and access team was being developed to ensure joined up services for all individuals.

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Simon Galczynski,  Service Director Adult Social Care, Jess Mcgregor AD - Strategic Commissioning, Tessa Cole, Improvement & Efficiency Programme Manager and Greg Pearson, Head of Performance presented the report to the Committee.

In the discussion the following points were made:

·         The inspection routine used to be paper based and similar to the Ofsted system. Now each region had been allowed to determine their own regime. London was further ahead than anywhere else and each local authority had undertaken to carry out a peer review of another borough as a three day intensive process.

·         Slides on the Peer review of Islington’s services could be made available if required.

·         The review had been largely positive and reflected strong partnerships in Health and a diverse and vibrant voluntary sector.

·         A finalised Action Plan for responding to the review would be available by the end of the month.

·         As the profile of the work on the London Living Wage rose it would be harder for providers not to engage with that process.

·         Property prices and site availability was an issue for service expansion in the borough.

·         The procurement process required that services should be run efficiently but within the existing terms of service and quality was very important.

·         Members stated that the Technical Action Plan should be drafted in term that were easier to understand to ensure they would be easy to implement.

Simon Galczynski,  Service Director Adult Social Care, Jess Mcgregor AD - Strategic Commissioning, Tessa Cole, Improvement & Efficiency Programme Manager and Greg Pearson, Head of Performance presented the report to the Committee.

In the discussion the following points were made:

·         Much of the information on the Local Account had been embargoed until the Department of Health had released their data. Officers could circulate details of the consultation and would welcome suggestions for engagement.

·         Councillors queried where the independent scrutiny of the process would lie.

·         The Local Account was being presented to the Committee to start the scrutiny process and there was a chance for members to review the documentation.

·         With the move away from the external inspection process the integrity of the new system was paramount.

·         The London Social Care Partnership would identify capacity and ensure trained officers were available.

·         There were faults with the old regime and the new process could allow more engagement with service users.

·         Officers had attempted to create independent focus groups from affected groups but there had been low attendance of sessions.

·         Councillors asked for more information on the data regarding the impact of mental health and employment. Officers would circulate this to members.

·         The council were still required to submit three times a year on key demographics.

The Chair stated that it had been a very good session and looked forward to seeing how the new systems would work in practice.

RESOLVED:

That the work programme be noted.