Meeting held on Thursday 17thMarch 2016 at Barnham Broom Hotel

Attending

Geoff RayChris BallBen Ampomah

Julian SnowlingGuppy KularAlisterHuong

Kay WatkinsonCaroline SteelMatthew Labaki

Sharon GardnerDavid StanderwickSue Spoerer

Also attending: Tony, Lauren, Rebekah

  1. Apologies for Absence DeeHebron.

Also welcome Rebekah Woodruff as an observer.

Charlotte is not with us today due to illness, the Committee sends their best wishes.

  1. To Receive and Approve the Minutes of the Last Meeting

The minutes of the previous meeting were received and approved.

Proposed: David Standerwick, Seconded: Julian Snowling

Matters Arising (not dealt with elsewhere)

Area Team visits conducted by Kelvin Rowland-Jones were very positive.

Capita taking over stores function from SERCO, members asked to send a copy to LS for website and communication.

Waste Campaign BBC Radio Norfolk week.

  1. Declarations of Interest

Members were asked to review their declarations of interest over lunchtime.

Action Section

  1. NHS England & Regional Update

TD updated the Committee on the NHS East & Midlands (east) area team re-structuring. Several senior members of staff are leaving. We are still to meet with our contract lead for GYW.

Waste contracts are being negotiated however there may be an issue with sharps as they are local authority responsibility.

SERCO currently manage updating NHS choices when contract decisions are made, CAPITA will handle applications but may not update NHS choices.

We have some concern over Area team staff being employed under CCGs and still being responsible for pharmacy contracts.

CCGs are coming together in planning groups STP to discuss joint working and planning.

CAS alerts is voluntary but all companies need to have a procedure in place for recording action.

MUR quarterly data will be requested in future

52,000 flu vaccinations delivered in East of England, no clinical issues reported

  1. HealthWatch Norfolk

Andrew provided an update. The new review system has received 3 pharmacy reviews, all positive. Reviews are checked that they are appropriate before posting on the website.

HealthWatch cannot take a political stance on our proposed funding cuts but are happy to promote the public views which are very clear.

Andrew can pull some data for us as the data is already publically available.

  1. Norfolk Medicines Support Service

TD attended a meeting on 15th March, at which the funding decisions and hence implications for the future of the service were discussed. It was recognised that the current restriction on referrals were not effective as those at a greater risk are likely to need greater intervention and social service involvement. The section 75 funding agreement has still not been agreed. More effective referral plans have been discussed and more assessors need to be trained. The CCGs and County Council have been advised that the current moratorium on referrals is creating an organisational risk.

BA: Could the pharmacies be more involved in the assessment process?

LS The vital part of the assessment is visiting the patient in their home which is more difficult for the pharmacy to do.

DS Can we do something about the pressure we are getting from care workers and families.

GR all care workers are signed up to a contract with County Council to provide medication via a MAR not MDS.

  1. Meeting with Dr Louise Smith, DPH

LS & TD met with the new DPH, Dr Louise Smith, on 15th February. A summary will be provided of what was discussed and implications.

Services are continuing as they are for the next year however we do need to be thinking to next years’ activity and maintaining quality

  1. EPS Update

South and West have declared plans and dates are being finalised. We have hosted 2 introduction evenings which were both well attended. Please reinforce the messages of preparation

  1. DH Funding and Plans for Community Pharmacy
  • Anil Sharma will be joining us to update us on national events and plans.

AS a steering group is now set up for all groups, lobbying MPs, parliamentary debate, PSNC now have the data from DoH and the consultation period has been extended by 2 months. An information hub will be set up. PWC looking at the social value of community pharmacy including unemployment costs, supply chain issues for hub and spoke, market research on the value of pharmacy. Judicial review has been considered but may be expensive and we are unlikely to win based on the precedent set in Ireland. Reducing establishment payments over 3-5 years

CS Could we follow up these discussions with a written summary.

  • Summary of local action to date -Plans for coordinated action including the NPA “Radio Day” on 22nd March. LPC-commissioned material
  • Breakout session: What actions can ALL support and MAKE HAPPEN?
  1. SCR Update

TD had to intervene on farcical plans by NELCSU to hold training with less than 2 or3 weeks’ notice, at times totally unsuitable and with wrong venues etc. This transpired despite local meetings to facilitate sensible rollout. This will now be revisited and sensible plans agreed- aimed at May/June/July.

  1. Funded Emergency Supply Update

We now have approval for all weekends and Bank Holidays in all of Norfolk and Waveney pharmacies for 2016-17.

  1. LPC Meetings, Time for a Change in the Way We “Do Things”?

Apart from the change to daytime meetings many years ago and recent, possibly failing, attempts to reduce the “pure reporting” nature of much of the day, we would ask the Committee to consider if we could and should do things differently.

BreakOut Session: To consider getting the most from resources in terms of

  • Frequency of meetings
  • What do we want from meetings?
  • Members’ input and activity at meetings
  • External guest speakers
  • The role of the Executive
  • Setting the agenda
  • Reporting mechanisms
  • Members’ attendance at other meetings and input into work-streams

KW is leading on governance during EM’s maternity leave

SG can we highlight which emails require a response.

  1. Election of Chair, Vice-Chair & Treasurer for 2016-17 and Consideration of Employee T&Cs.

Our constitution requires the Chair, Vice-Chair and Treasurer to be elected annually.

The Committee supports the current structure and re-electedGR and CB as chair and vice chair/treasurer respectively.

The Committee would like to see last years’ pay arrangements and increases before deciding on this years.

  1. Register of Members’ Interests

As discussed at the last meeting we would like all members to declare a few areas of interest so that we can invite them to meetings where possible or invite further discussion on plans.

  1. HLP- What Can We Support?

The new self-accreditation framework has still not been published by PHE making a new proposal very difficult. We need to look at the existing contract and discuss what part of it we can work with and suggest alternative KPIs for any future funding to be viable.

Commitments from Committee members to be incorporated into HLP KPIs

  1. Sunday Conference 2016

Kelvin not available for early summer dates

Re-plan for September time.

  1. A.O.B

Next Meeting Thursday 26th May