Agenda and minutes

The Committee are asked to approve the minutes of the last meeting, held on 19 October 2021.

The minutes of the last meeting held on 19 October 2021 were approved as a correct record.

Presentation from Pauline Fletcher, Senior Primary Care Manager (Dental Commissioning Lead – North East and North Cumbria) and Jennifer Owen, Chair of the South Tyneside and Gateshead Local Dental Committee.

The Committee received a presentation from Pauline Fletcher, Senior Primary Care Manager (Dental Commissioning Lead – North East and Cumbria) NHS England and NHS Improvement and Jennifer Owen (a practising Dentist), Chair of the South Tyneside and Gateshead Local Dental Committee.

The presentation provided an update to the Committee on NHS General Dental Services for Adults and looked at background/context, general dental access provision, NHS Dentistry pressures and challenges, national dental COVID constraints, safely restoring access to services and local measures/actions to date with access and next steps.

The presentation summarised the following key points to note:

·        All NHS dental practices still operating at significant reduced capacity due to requirements to continue to adhere to national infection control guidance.

·        It is therefore necessary for dental practices to triage patients who contact them to ensure that patients with the greatest clinical need, i.e. those requiring urgent dental care and vulnerable patients are prioritised, which likely means a delay for patients seeking non-clinically urgent and more routine dental care such as check-ups.

·        Progression to resume the full range of routine dental care is being risk managed by individual practices in compliance with national guidance.

·        This position is likely to continue until at least end of March 2022, when we are expecting further national guidance to be published.

·        All opportunities are being explored to increase the clinical treatment capacity available.

·        In the interim all patients are being asked for their understanding and co-operation during this unprecedented and difficult time for the NHS.

RESOLVED – That the information be noted.

Presentation by Steph Downey, Service Director, Adult Social Care

The Committee received a presentation from Edward O’Malley (Public Health Team) and Steph Downey (Director of Adult Social Care) on the Gateshead System Covid-19 update.

The presentation provided the current epidemiology update, vaccination update, primary care update, secondary care update, mental health update, social care update - Commissioning and social care update -adult social care.

RESOLVED – That the information be noted.

Report of Siobhan O’Neil, CEO, Gateshead Healthwatch

The Committee received a report from Siobhan O’Neil, Chief Executive, Healthwatch Gateshead  which provided an update on the range of work being carried out by Healthwatch Gateshead.

The report covered  the domains within Healthwatch England (HWE) Quality Framework. This tool has been developed to support local Healthwatch to take stock and make improvements and to help local councils in their commissioning and monitoring of Healthwatch. The domains are:

·        Leadership and decision making

·        People

·        Sustainability and resilience

·        Collaboration

·        Engagement, Involvement and Reach

·        Influence and impact

RESOLVED – That the information be noted.

Report of the Strateguc Director, Resources and Digital

The Committee received a report and presentation from Lindsay Murray, Service Director, Trading and Communications, Corporate Resources on the new performance management and improvement framework.

The Committee were asked to submit ideas for scrutiny and recommended the performance report to Cabinet in March 2022.

Report and presentation by Steph Downey,  Service Director, Adult Social Care

Steph Downey, Service Director, Adult Social Care provided the Committee with a report and presentation on the Adult Social Care White Paper.

The Committee received details of the overview and main objectives, key themes and what this would mean for Gateshead as well as details of the finance headlines.

Report of the Chief Executive and Strategic Director of Corporate Services and Governance

The Committee received a report which set out the provisional work programme for  the Care, Health and Wellbeing OSC for the municipal year 2021/22.

The Committee’s provisional work programme was endorsed at the meeting held on 22 June 2021 and Councillors have agreed that further reports will be brought to future meetings to highlight current issues/identify any changes/additions to this programme.

Appendix 1 (attached to the main report) sets out the work programme as it currently stands and highlights proposed changes to the programme in bold and italics for ease of identification.