Representatives from the NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board have been invited to attend the meeting.
Minutes:
At the meeting of Council – 29th September 2021 it was resolved through the Motion on Notice Primary Care Patients in Lancaster, that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee establish an annual meeting to discuss healthcare matters in the district, to which should be invited representatives of relevant NHS bodies, including the local Clinical Commissioning Group.
The Chair welcomed Peter Tinson and Hilary Fordham from NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board and Amy Williams and Dr. Gavin Torr of Lancaster Medical Practice to the meeting.
Hilary Fordham, Integrated Place Lead – North Lancashire, NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board and Peter Tinson, Director of NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board provided the committee with an overview of the changes to the health and care system brought about by the Health and Care Act 2022:
· The eight Clinical Commissioning Groups in Lancashire and South Cumbria were disestablished in July 2022 and replaced by the NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board.
· This new body takes on the NHS commissioning function previously held by the CCGs as well as additional functions previously the responsibility of NHS England such as Community Pharmacies, Dentistry and Eyecare.
· A new statutory committee, the Integrated Care Partnership was also established to enable partners to develop joint strategies to address long term challenges which cannot be addressed by a single sector or organisation alone.
Presentation slides had been prepared in advance of the meeting which provided more detail on the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care System and the Integrated Care Partnership.
Dr Gavin Torr, GP Partner at Lancaster Medical Practice and Amy Williams, Managing Partner of Lancaster Medical Practice then addressed the Committee with updates on the improvements to the level of service provided by their organisation along with a presentation outlining in more detail the services provided by the Practice during 2022 and the start of 2023 including:
· Patient Pathways by which patients are treated.
· Activity including number of appointments and home visits delivered, medications issued, and documents processed.
· Snapshots of the ratio of face to face and telephone appointments across all clinical staff.
· Prescription processing times.
· Call handling metrics and average telephone queue times from April 2022 to January 2023.
The committee posed questions to the representatives of both organisations and discussed issues relating to their presentations and the provision of healthcare in the district. This discussion covered several issues including the proposed relocation or refurbishment of Lancaster Royal Infirmary, difficulties faced by residents accessing Lancaster Medical Practice services, urgent care triage, continuity of out-of-hours care, access to face-to-face services for residents in deprived areas, the provision of Health Visitors under the new commissioning regime and the specifics of LMP’s call-handling statistics.
At the conclusion of this discussion, after thanking the guests for their attendance, the Chair called a 10-minute recess.
Resolved:
(1) That thanks be extended to Hilary Fordham, Peter Tinson, Dr Gavin Torr and Amy Williams for their attendance and information provided.
(2) That the presentations of both NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board and Lancaster Medical Practice be noted