Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest received at this point in the meeting.

A member queried progress against an action from the previous meeting about the number of children who were no longer in receipt of Free School Meals following the introduction of Universal Credit. It was agreed this would be followed up with the relevant service area.

ORDERED that:

1) That the action relating to the number of children no longer in receipt of Free School Means since the introduction of Universal Credit would be pursued with the relevant service area.  

2) The minutes of the Health Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 5 October 2021 were submitted and approved as a correct record.

Representatives of Prospect Surgery and the Clinical Commissioning Group to provide an update on the surgery’s recent inspection by the Care Quality Commission.

The Chair welcomed Drs Saleem and Kesavalu and Mrs Jane Henderson from Prospect Surgery as well as Dr Nanda as Clinical Director of the Central Middlesbrough Primary Care Network and Karen Hawkins as Director of Commissioning, Strategy and Delivery (Primary & Community Care).

The Chair emphasized that the panel’s intention was to act as critical friend in this matter.

The Director of Commissioning explained to members that the CQC was a regulatory independent body for health and social care services. The CQC had produced an inspection report that identified Prospect GP surgery had been found to be inadequate in three domains.

It was explained that the CQC ordinarily carried out announced visits with GP Practices usually receiving two weeks’ notice of such an inspection. The CQC inspection in this case was unannounced and carried out in July 2021 with the resulting report produced in September. There were three areas of focus within the report; safety, effectiveness and well-led with all three areas found to be inadequate. The inspection did not inspect the caring and responsive elements of the practice but did find two breaches of regulation specifically regulation 12 regarding safe care and treatment as well as regulation 17 regarding good governance. The practice had until the 1^st October 2021 to respond to the former and the 6^th December 2021 for the latter breach.

Members were informed that the practice had put robust action plans in place to address the issues in the report and that the Local Medical Committee, Local GP Federation and the CCG were all working to support Prospect. It was recognized that remedial action was required to reassure patients and reinforce their confidence in the practice.

Importantly, while the CCG would be supporting the practice with their action plans they were not a regulator and as such would be not be signing off any responses to the CQC.

Naturally, the practice were disappointed with the outcome of the report but were working hard to ensure any failings were being remedied. It was also noted that the CQC could, within the next six months, carry out a further inspection should any further concerns be raised. The panel were reassured that the practice has positively engaged with the CQC and they were able to remedy several of the issues identified in the report.

Representatives from Prospect GP practice advised the panel they were thankful for the opportunity to address members. Members heard how the practice had been previously rated as good by the CQC and there was a number of factors that contributed to the most recent rating. Those factors included the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic which led to some patients having to isolate and refusing to attend their usual appointments. Similar impacts were felt due to staff isolation which resulted in staff shortages at critical times, especially during the vaccination programme.

Importantly, changes to how patients were monitored for chronic diseases meant reviews were not being carried out as they should have been. There  ...  view the full minutes text for item 21/97

Mark Adams, Director of Public Heath (South Tees) will be in attendance to provide an update on COVID-19 and the local Public Health / NHS response.

The Director of Public Health provided an update on the ongoing response and recovery to COVID-19 and made the following points:

•     Covid infection figures for Middlesbrough were falling, albeit slowly with town sitting at 97th in the league tables. The peaks of infection in Middlesbrough during September were 407 compared to approximately 200 in October.

•     It was commented that the 0-19 age group were inflating the infection figures although there was a notable decline in infections across all age groups.

•     It was noted that only one school had mobilized onsite Covid testing and that positive cases at that school were very low.

•     Schools generally reflected the community transmission rate.

•     Schools were maintaining some social distancing processes, including the bubble system.

•     In terms of hospital admission figures; there were 47 cases including those needing critical care. However, while these numbers were falling the health system as a whole was still stressed.

•     The Covid related mortality rate was much smaller than in previous waves.

•     There were currently 76% of people having received the first dose of the Covid Vaccine with and 68.8% having had the second.

•     There was a similar pattern of vaccine take up by age range to previous patters, with the number of over 50s that were unvaccinated was coming down, albeit slowly.

•     A discussion took place regarding the so-called winter plan the main. It was commented that the main strategy was to build and maintain defences through pharmaceutical interventions and vaccines as well as advising people on how to take care of themselves. This strategy was known as Plan A.

•     There was also the potential for a Plan B in the event the winter period placed strain on the health system. This included face coverings being made a legal requirement.

•     Guidance was being produced for vaccinating healthy children as part of third phase of the vaccination rollout. 

•     Vaccine boosters were to be Pfizer or Moderna with Primary Care Network’s targeting care homes in the first instance.

•     In terms of the vaccine for young people; there has been locally not vaccinate 12-15 year olds if their parents had not consented.

The chair commented that Middlesbrough had previously followed other areas in terms of infection rates and queried if this would be the case going forward. It was confirmed that other areas may now be following Middlesbrough, and that the town was likely to have experienced its infection peak.

A member queried what actions were being taken with regard to room ventilation to assist with Covid compliance measures. It was confirmed that in some venues, such as schools, carbon monoxide monitors were being deployed to ensure that air quality in those venues remained safe should occupancy levels be high.

A discussion took place about demonstrations held outside a school in Newcastle by so-called anti-vaxxers. It was confirmed that such activity was not present in Middlesbrough.

A Member queried what stage the vaccination process was at  ...  view the full minutes text for item 21/98

The Director of Regeneration will be in attendance to provide a verbal update on how regeneration initiatives can address health inequalities.

The panel agreed that this item be deferred until its November meeting.

The Chair advised the panel that at OSB’s last meeting on the 8 September the Mayor was in attendance and provided the Board with an update on his aims and aspirations as well as progress made to date and to highlight any emerging issues.

The Board also received updates from all Scrutiny Panel Chairs, and were advised as to the contents of the Executive Forward Work Programme.

The Chief Executive was also in attendance and provided the Board with an update on the Council’s ongoing response to COVID-19 and other organizational matters.

NOTED

None.