Agenda item

(Director of Governance) to note the current position with regards to the our scrutiny of the Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust.

The meeting noted that the Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH) NHS Trust had been invited to attend a future meeting of this Committee to respond to the concerns of the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The Trust had confirmed that its Chairman and Chief Executive would attend an extraordinary meeting of the Committee to be held on 30 January 2017.

The Committee was therefore requested to consider and agree any appropriate lines of questioning to be raised with the Trust in order that prior notice of the scope of the questions likely to be raised by members could be provided beforehand.

The following items were raised by members:

Strategic Issues

1.         Details of the Trust’s high-level plans for the improvement of the services rated by the Care Quality Commission in its inspection report of October 2016, as ‘inadequate’;

2.         Details of the action already taken by the Trust to improve services rated by the Commission as inadequate;

3.         The sustainability of the service improvements already made by the Trust in response to the findings of the Commission, and of other improvements yet to be implemented;

4.         The enhancement of the service capacity of the Trust, particularly in terms of the development proposals contained in the Consultation Draft of the new Local Plan for the Epping Forest District and the new Local Development Plan for Harlow;

5.         The possible relocation of the Trust’s services away from the current Princess Alexandra Hospital site in Harlow, and/or the development of new service facilities on the current hospital site;

6.         The support provided by Essex County Council for the enhancement of the service capacity of the Trust, particularly with regard to the possible relocation of services from Princess Alexandra Hospital or the development of new service facilities on the current hospital site;

7.         The support that could be offered by Epping Forest District Council to enhance the service capacity of the Trust,

Operational Issues

8.         How the Trust intends to address and improve the following matters identified by the Commission:

(a)       the bed pressure and capacity issues that result in patients being allocated the next available bed rather than being treated on a ward specifically for their condition;

(b)       the low levels of staff morale and service pressures within the surgery and emergencydepartments at Princess Alexandra Hospital;

(c)       the apparent ‘disconnect’ between its executive team and front line staff, to reinforce its aspirational ‘family team’ culture;

(d)       the apparent inconsistent approach to learning from incidents;

(e)       that processes for the safeguarding of children are not sufficiently robust and that staff attendance at safeguarding training sessions is inconsistent;

(f)        that processes for the induction of nursingand medical staff is not consistentlycompleted; and

(g)       that its history of cancelled operations that are notrebooked within 28 days, which shows a lack of support for people to have care re-arranged as quickly as possible, is worse than the average for England;

9.         Details of the Trust’s proposals for improvement in the recruitment and retention of staff, particularly where current difficulties may be  arising as a result of budgetary pressures, bureaucracy, or a lack of capacity on the part of staff to manage the recruitment and retention process; and

10.      Details of the Trust’s current and ongoing initiatives across its services to increase capacity or reduce admissions, through joint working withlocal stakeholders.

It was noted that there was to be a joint scrutiny approach to concerns raised by the CQC for the Princess Alexandra Hospital and it was agreed that Councillor Mohindra should be our representative on this body.

It was noted that as they had been classed as inadequate they would be due another inspection soon, how would this affect them.

The Committee considered if they wanted just to have a Q&A session with or without a presentation. They agreed that they would like some sort of handout with the relevant facts that they could consider before/during the session.