Agenda and minutes

RESOLVED -

That the minutes of the last meeting held on 1 November 2016 were agreed as a correct record.

The Committee received a report and presentations in the second evidence gathering session examining the role of housing standards in Gateshead with respect to issues regarding:

·         the condition of the private stock (both physical condition and conditions of management in the private rented sector)

·         fuel poverty and affordable warmth

The aim is to highlight particular issues regarding housing standards, how these impact upon health and wellbeing, and issues and challenges in maintaining and improving standards.

Peter Wright, Environmental Health and Trading Standards Manager provided the committee a presentation on the impact on health and wellbeing of standards in the private housing sector/place shaping, housing and health.

Peter Smith, Head of Policy and Research, National Energy Action (NEA) provided the committee with a presentation on affordable warmth, fuel poverty and health.

Gill Leng, National Home and Health Advisor, Health Equity and Mental Health Division, Public Health England, provided the committee with a presentation on health and housing.

The Committee requested that further information be provided with regard to the number and type of prosecutions relating to poor landlords.

It is proposed that future evidence gathering sessions will cover the following:-

January – how housing support and advice services maintain and improved  health and wellbeing

February – focus group to collate evidence from members

RESOLVED- i)   that the information be noted

                     ii)   that further information be provided to Committee regarding the     

                           number and type of prosecutions arising from poor landlords

The Committee received a report which provided the six month assessment of performance and delivery for the period April to September 2016 in relation to the Council Plan 2015-2020.

The report sets out the achievements, key actions for the next six months as well as areas that require improvement in relation to the outcomes of Live Well Gateshead and Live Love Gateshead.

Where performance was available at the six month stage for relevant strategic indicators relating to this OSC, this was also presented to Committee.

Progress as to how well the Council is performing in relation to the equalities where information is available at this stage was also provided to Committee in the report.

The Director of Public Health, Alice Wiseman supported by the Service Director, Adult Social Care, Steph Downey highlighted the key achievements, challenges and issues within the report for the committee’s consideration.

RESOLVED -

i)

The Committee were satisfied that the activities undertaken during April 2016 to September 2016 were achieving the desired outcomes in the Council Plan 2015-2020.

ii)

That the report be referred to Cabinet on 24 January 2017 for consideration.

The Committee received a report from Katrina Roberts, Practice Manager at Bensham Family Practice to take the Committee through the proposal/rationale for the closure of the branch surgery at Lobley Hill and the engagement work carried out with patients and stakeholders.

Background

Lobley Hill (LH) surgery has operated as a Branch surgery of Bensham Family Practice for approximately thirty years. The total practice list size is 4400 patients. For the last 5+ years the surgery was only open for one hour per week, with a GP consulting during that time. No Practice Nurse appointments, Long Term Condition screening of phlebotomy services have been offered at the branch during the whole time it has operated as a branch surgery. In the latter years of being open the one hour per week GP appointments are rarely fully booked as patients preferred to attend the main site on Sidney Grove. Furthermore the branch site is in a poor state of repair and following an independent Health & Safety assessment carried out in April 2016, it was declared unfit for purpose. All services were transferred to the main surgery at Bensham at the beginning of 3016 when the health and safety issues became apparent.

Audit of Lobley Hill Branch Surgery

An audit was undertaken of the usage of Lobley Hill branch surgery for the period 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2015, the results of which were as follows:

·         Appointments available 276

·         Appointments booked 114

·         Appointments unbooked 162

·         % of available appointments that remained unused 59%

Engagement

A very small number of patients used the branch surgery on a regular basis. A patient engagement exercise was carried out in May/June 2016. 433 questionnaires were sent out to patients living in the Lobley Hill area and 127 replies were received. 2 patients indicated they would change their practice should the surgery close the branch site. 1 family stated they struggled to attend the main site on Sidney Grove. This family were contacted and in fact their problem was the times they could pre book appointments for their disabled father. This family now has open access to any appointment at the main site. They did state that they preferred the main site as the facilities were better, including disabled access, disabled parking and full range of primary care services available.

The questionnaires that were returned indicated that all other patients overwhelmingly supported the transfer of the service to the main site. It is practice policy to endeavour to meet patient needs and as such any patient that requires a home visit is offered one on the day it is requested, regardless of their location.

Main site

The main site on Sidney Grove has a large car park, disabled parking, ramps to the entrance, electronic opening doors, low reception desk facility, widened doorways, disabled toilet and handrails. The Practice Manager does not feel that there are any ‘physical’ problems that patients have to encounter. The full range of primary care services from a purpose built and modern building  ...  view the full minutes text for item CHW24

The Committee received a report from Dr Anil Doshi, Dr Stella Jacobs, Nurse Practitioner Janet Thomas and Partners of Crawcrook Medical Centre in order to take Committee through the proposal/rationale for the proposed closure of the branch surgery at Greenside and the engagement work carried out so far with patients and stakeholders.

Crawcrook Medical Centre currently deliver primary care services through a GMS contract from the purpose built main surgery premises on Pattinson Drive Crawcrook and a limited service to patients within the Greenside Community Centre Premises. The medical centre are proposing to close the branch surgery at Greenside due to the fact that by January 2017 they will have lost 50% of the GP capacity, and despite the best efforts they have been unable to recruit more GPs.

Background

Up until July 2016 Crawcrook Medical Centre has provided a clinical session at Greenside Community Centre. A GP from Crawcrook has attended the site 5 mornings a week, providing each morning allocated slots to see up to 12 patients face to face and one as a telephone appointment slot. Any patients who need to attend to see a nurse of health care assistant need to be given an appointment at the main surgery at Crawcrook, because the rooms at Greenside don’t meet the national standards to see patients beyond anything other than a face to face consultation with a GP.

As the GP resource has reduced by 33% from January 2016, due to two of the salaried GPs leaving, the practice felt they had no choice but to ask permission from NHS England in July 2016 to reduce the service at Greenside from 5 mornings a week to 3 mornings a week, as it became impossible to sustain GP cover for 5 days.

From mid January 2017 another GP will be leaving, reducing the GP resource by a total of 50% and making it impossible to sustain continued delivery of services over 2 sites.  The practice are therefore having to review their structure and ways of working to accommodate this reduction.

External Audit

An external audit was carried out to help the practice understand how many patients attend Greenside surgery. The audit was carried out by an external auditor to look at the demographics and attendance of patients, resident with a Greenside address, during the 12 month period 26.09.15 to 26.09.16. The results demonstrated that out of a potential 1500 Greenside residents 743 Greenside patients had attended in that year and there were only 58 patients identified who have only ever attended Greenside and have never attended the Crawcrook site, which is 3.8% of the 1500 Greenside residents. The remainder of those 743 patients have attended both Greenside and Crawcrook with 651 of those patients attending Crawcrook more than Greenside. The 58 patients represent 0.8% of the total population of the 7268 patients registered for both Crawcrook and Greenside and this confirms the practice decision for the services to be consolidated to the Crawcrook site.

The practice has  ...  view the full minutes text for item CHW25